Indian envoy warns of 'big red line,' days after charges laid in Nijjar case
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
Overworked and understaffed health-care workers leaving their jobs over poor working conditions are becoming more alarming to health advocates, who are calling for federal help to address a Canada-wide nurses shortage.
“We have to fix the workplace in our health-care system right now, it's an urgent issue,” Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Union (CFNU), told CTV’s Your Morning on Monday.
The urgency for action has been long overdue, Silas says, as the Canadian medical field has been facing staffing shortages since before the pandemic that wasn’t addressed before COVID made matters worse.
"Now Canadians can't get their surgeries, can't get their specialized treatments, we have ERs closing across the country and the big reason is that we don't have enough for nurses," she said.
A survey conducted by the Canadian Union of Public Employees this year found that 87 per cent of 2,600 registered practical nurses in hospitals considered quitting their jobs after facing poor working conditions and abuse from patient’s families.
Understaffing has become an even bigger issue over the pandemic as many workers have been left feeling burnt out and unable to provide patients with quality care when they become overworked, Silas said.
“We cannot let 20 per cent of our workforce retire early. We cannot let one in two nurses leave, our system will completely collapse,” she said.
In June, Statistics Canada reported an all-time high of job vacancies within the health sector as 136,800 positions were reported in the first quarter of 2022; a nearly 91 per cent increase since the first quarter of 2020. Additionally, over 50 per cent of nurses claim their mental health has become worse compared to what it used to be before the pandemic.
Along with the CFNU, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) hoped to gain the attention of Canada’s premiers at the Council of the Federation meeting on Monday, highlighting their own recommendations to address the crisis including fast-tracking internationally educated nurses to work in hospitals and providing mental health support to current health-care workers.
Silas, attended the meeting, said in a statement on the federation’s website that Canada’s premiers will be gathering at a “critical” moment for the nation’s health care system.
“It’s time for federal, provincial and territorial governments to listen to frontline nurses and work with us on urgent solutions. We have no time to waste,” she said.
India's envoy to Canada insists relations between the two countries are positive overall, despite what he describes as 'a lot of noise.'
With Donald Trump sitting just feet away, Stormy Daniels testified Tuesday at the former president's hush money trial about a sexual encounter the porn actor says they had in 2006 that resulted in her being paid to keep silent during the presidential race 10 years later.
The U.S. paused a shipment of bombs to Israel last week over concerns that Israel was approaching a decision on launching a full-scale assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah against the wishes of the U.S.
Footage from dozens of security cameras in the area of Drake’s Bridle Path mansion could be the key to identifying the suspect responsible for shooting and seriously injuring a security guard outside the rapper’s sprawling home early Tuesday morning, a former Toronto homicide detective says.
A chicken farmer near Mattawa made an 'eggstraordinary' find Friday morning when she discovered one of her hens laid an egg close to three times the size of an average large chicken egg.
Susan Buckner, best known for playing peppy Rydell High School cheerleader Patty Simcox in the 1978 classic movie musical 'Grease,' has died. She was 72.
Accused killer Jeremy Skibicki could have a challenging time convincing a judge that he is not criminally responsible for the deaths of four Indigenous women, a legal analyst says.
A Calgary bylaw requiring businesses to charge a minimum bag fee and only provide single-use items when requested has officially been tossed.
Two Nova Scotia men are dead after a boat they were travelling in sank in the Annapolis River in Granville Centre, N.S., on Monday.
An Ontario man says he paid more than $7,700 for a luxury villa he found on a popular travel website -- but the listing was fake.
Whether passionate about Poirot or hungry for Holmes, Winnipeg mystery obsessives have had a local haunt for over 30 years in which to search out their latest page-turners.
Eighty-two-year-old Susan Neufeldt and 90-year-old Ulrich Richter are no spring chickens, but their love blossomed over the weekend with their wedding at Pine View Manor just outside of Rosthern.
Alberta Ballet's double-bill production of 'Der Wolf' and 'The Rite of Spring' marks not only its final show of the season, but the last production for twin sisters Alexandra and Jennifer Gibson.
A mother goose and her goslings caused a bit of a traffic jam on a busy stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway near Vancouver Saturday.
A British Columbia mayor has been censured by city council – stripping him of his travel and lobbying budgets and removing him from city committees – for allegedly distributing a book that questions the history of Indigenous residential schools in Canada.
Three men in Quebec from the same family have fathered more than 600 children.
A group of SaskPower workers recently received special recognition at the legislature – for their efforts in repairing one of Saskatchewan's largest power plants after it was knocked offline for months following a serious flood last summer.
A police officer on Montreal's South Shore anonymously donated a kidney that wound up drastically changing the life of a schoolteacher living on dialysis.