Nova Scotia is providing nurses as much as $20,000 in bonuses to maintain them within the province’s public well being system — or to encourage them to return.
The “retention incentives” are a approach of thanking Nova Scotia’s nurses and health-care employees, Premier Tim Houston mentioned Monday.
“I hope that this cash will make a distinction to a number of households across the province,” Houston instructed reporters on the Dartmouth Common Hospital.
“My message to each nurse within the province is easy: We want you.”
Learn extra:
N.S. physician waitlist nears 14% of province’s complete inhabitants
Nova Scotia will give all full-time nurses in long-term care properties and hospitals a $10,000 bonus, and they are going to be supplied a further $10,000 bonus in the event that they signal an settlement to proceed working full time for 2 years.
The province may also award $10,000 to Nova Scotia nurses who’ve left the general public system however who conform to return and signal a two-year, full-time contract by March 31. As nicely, the federal government will give $5,000 bonuses to different well being employees, together with paramedics, telehealth employees, respiratory therapists, continuing-care employees, ward clerks, and housekeeping and meals service employees within the province.
Houston mentioned the cash is to “acknowledge your sacrifice and say to you that so long as you retain working in Nova Scotia in our health-care system, your authorities may have your again.”
“Cash definitely isn’t every thing, but it surely’s one thing,” the premier added.
Well being Minister Michelle Thompson mentioned the bonuses, which might be distributed within the coming weeks, will value round $350 million. They may value the federal government $110 million subsequent yr, she added.
“We’ve heard from nurses that they really feel, as (do) different health-care employees, that we have to sign (to them) that we would like them to remain,” Thompson mentioned. “And we’ve finished that in the present day.”
Learn extra:
New physician registry cuts obstacles to apply throughout Atlantic provinces, says regulatory faculty
The minister mentioned it’s her hope that as many as 1,500 to 2,000 nurses who at one level labored in Nova Scotia’s public well being system might return due to the bonuses.
Janet Hazelton, president of the Nova Scotia Nurses’ Union, mentioned the bonuses are “implausible information.”
“We’ve been saying for a very long time that retaining nurses is each bit as necessary, if no more, than recruiting,” Hazelton mentioned Monday.
She mentioned the bonuses, in addition to the premier and minister’s message of due to health-care employees, are “very welcome and really a lot appreciated.”
Hazelton, nonetheless, mentioned the province nonetheless wants to deal with different considerations, together with nurses’ workloads and the frequency of violence they face on the job.
“We’re nonetheless working (short-staffed) and we’re nonetheless injuring too many nurses, and there’s nonetheless an excessive amount of violence,” Hazelton mentioned.
“So all of these points should be addressed and we intend to deal with every certainly one of them in bargaining.”
The Nova Scotia Council of Nursing Unions started in-person negotiations with the provincial Well being Division and well being authority on Feb. 28. The prevailing collective settlement for Nova Scotia nurses expired Oct. 31, 2020.
The bonuses introduced Monday might be distributed outdoors of any wage agreements which may be negotiated with unions.
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed March 20, 2023.
© 2023 The Canadian Press