Nurses' union calls on federal government to take lead in addressing nursing shortages
CTV
The national union representing nurses in Canada is calling on the federal government to take a leadership role in combatting the ongoing nursing shortages across the country.
Registered nurse Linda Silas, who is president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions (CFNU), wants the feds to gather data and undertake strategic nationwide planning initiatives to help provinces and health-care providers alleviate their staffing shortages.
"We need to gather all the intelligence and the data to make better decisions," Silas told CTVNews.ca over the phone on Wednesday.
"What the federal government needs to do is to bring it up to a level to give the tools to the provinces and territories to make the appropriate decision."
Silas says that many hospitals and provinces, which have mostly focused on the "day-to-day" operation of the health-care system, struggle to find the resources to investigate new staffing models and other pilot projects that could help reduce some of the nursing shortages.
