Opinion: All the things’s greater in Texas — even its herd of Canadian well being staff

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Texas and Alberta have quite a bit in frequent. Cattle ranches, rodeos, a booming oil and fuel sector, and 1000’s of Canadian health-care staff.

That final merchandise on the checklist could be a little bit of a shock to some. However it’s true.

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Contemplating many Canadian provinces, Alberta included, are dealing with a scarcity of health-care staff, it’s a good suggestion to take a look at other ways our nation can preserve hospitals and clinics staffed with the medical doctors and nurses wanted to care for sufferers. 

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SecondStreet.org determined to look at the variety of Canadian medical doctors and nurses with licences to work within the U.S. The analysis began by taking a look at states alongside the Canada/U.S. border after which expanded to standard states deeper into the U.S.: Florida, California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Texas. 

The outcomes have been wilder than a buckin’ bronco. 

Texas was, by far, probably the most engaging of those states for Canadian health-care staff. There have been 5,620 nurses and 443 medical doctors with a licence to work within the Lone Star State. Sadly, a majority of the nursing licences didn’t have a province specified, so it’s not clear which a part of Canada they got here from.

In whole, the 14 states had issued licences to simply over 18,000 well being staff with Canadian mailing addresses. For perspective, that’s virtually sufficient to pack the Saddledome stuffed with well being staff for a Flames recreation. It’s necessary to notice that determine doesn’t embrace the 1000’s of Canadian medical doctors and nurses who’ve moved to the U.S. and now not use Canadian mailing addresses.

Whereas not each one of many 18,000 licensees is at the moment working within the U.S. (some could have retired, returned residence, and so on.), it’s clear that the mind drain to states comparable to Texas is contributing to the employees scarcity in Alberta and the remainder of the nation.

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So what may be accomplished to persuade these important well being staff to remain residence?

For one, extra selection. That is one thing the Alberta authorities has taken some constructive steps towards. Originally of the yr, it pledged to finish 3,000 orthopedic surgical procedures by way of publicly funded, privately run clinics. Not solely does this have nice promise for sufferers, but it surely’s additionally good for workers as properly. If a nurse or physician doesn’t take pleasure in working in a government-run hospital, they could be interested in working at a personal facility as an alternative of leaving the province for work.

Whereas it’s nice to see Alberta take this step, it might go additional. Why not preserve the general public health-care system however permit Albertans to pay for his or her care at native personal clinics, as an alternative of constructing sufferers depart the province in the event that they wish to pay for surgical procedure? Quebecers have the suitable to pay for his or her care regionally. If they’ll do it, why can’t Albertans?

It’s additionally necessary to enhance the government-run system. When surveying nurses who lived in Ontario however labored in Michigan, SecondStreet.org heard many fascinating causes as to why they selected to work within the U.S. The highest purpose was really the supply of labor: many nurses have been unable to search out full-time jobs in Canada and needed to take care of juggling completely different part-time shifts.

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It appears to be like like this may very well be taking place in Alberta. In keeping with the federal authorities, 31 per cent of Alberta nurses work part-time, considerably greater than the 19 per cent common for all different jobs. Maybe there’s a chance to mix a few of these positions into full-time work to probably persuade some well being staff to remain residence.

It’s frequent sense that for a health-care system to work, you want employees to maintain it working. Convincing employees to cease working south of the border can play a significant function.

The Calgary Stampede’s quite a bit higher than the Houston Rodeo, anyway.

Dom Lucyk is the Communications Director with SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think-tank.

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