In Alberta there are thousands of nurses working in the hospitals, we are technically not short of nurses but because of what happened in 1993 a large percentage of nurses went from full-time to part-time this has then caused a significant amount of nurses to be part-time and not enough full-time nurses, therefore causing a nursing shortage. By Ralph Klein laying off so many nurses it has opened the eyes to the public of how nurses get treated. Many people do not want to take the nursing programs due to wages, marks to get in to schools are quite high, and how nurses get treated due to being in a union. Students are discouraged due to the long waiting list that is needed for the nursing program as well. The nursing shortage has then caused there to be mandatory overtime, if nurses refuse to work the mandatory overtime they can be charged with patient abandonment and as a result can lose their RN nursing license around the world.
In many hospitals in Canada Nurses are getting tired of their heavy workloads. Mandatory overtime results in costly charges to organizations. Many organizations monitor their staffs working hours to protect the safety of their patients. The challenge to fix this issue is becoming more and more difficult as the shortage of nurses keeps on growing. There is several ways the government is trying to fix the shortage for example; the government will be investing more money into nursing programs and