Final-year students at the Centre for Nursing Studies campus in St. John’s are concerned about their future job prospects, so far, three out of 121 have received job offers to work upon graduation. Some students say NL Health Services has not done enough to communicate with soon-to-be grads.
“It’s not very often that you can see in unison as a full class, absolutely scared, frustrated, horrified about what their future is entailing, especially after four years of one of the hardest programs,” said Michael Ricketts, a final-year student at the Centre for Nursing Studies (CNS) St. John’s campus.
Ricketts completed his clinical placement in Goose Bay, and within a month had an offer with Labrador-Grenfell. He is one of the three final-year students at CNS St. John’s campus that have been offered positions with NL Health Services.
The other 118 students in graduating next year are waiting to see if they will be offered a permanent position. Last Friday, the Registered Nurses Union (RNU) raised the alarm after its Vice President Kim Parsons visited the campus.
RNU president Yvette Coffey says that NL Health Services needs to do more to recruit local student nurses, and it risks losing them to other provinces with more aggressive recruitment, and better offers.
“Why are we not recruiting our own nursing students here in Newfoundland and Labrador? We only put out a little over 200 a year. We have over 600 vacancies. Why will we not be offering every single one of them a permanent full-time position?” said Coffey.
Last Tuesday, vice-president of human resources for NLHS Debbie Molloy and the provincial Minister of Health John Hogan held a press conference at the House of Assembly. Molloy said that 90 interviews with nursing students have been conducted so far, and that offers will be forthcoming.
“If there’s been a misunderstanding I just want to be very clear that we do have a position available for every graduate in 2025.”
Minister Hogan said he wanted to assure the public that the provincial government is everything it can to get nursing graduates working in the province and that they are “ahead of schedule.”
“The positions will be start to be offered in the more a higher number of frequency in December or January. So we’re not December, we’re not January yet. It takes a little bit of time, as you know, to do the interviews, to talk to the nurses,” said Hogan.
Nursing students say there has not been enough communication
Final-year nursing student Rebecca Penney says she has yet to be interviewed or receive a job offer. She says that NL Health Services “should be pushing a bit harder” to recruit graduating nursing students.
“I feel as though we should be given the information to set our expectations appropriately … if we had some consistency among what we were being told, we would be able to set our expectations well in terms of where we can work and what kind of jobs are available,” said Penney.
Ricketts says that although he has seen pictures of visits to nursing classes from government officials, none have visited with the 121 nursing students that are graduating this year.
According to RNU President Yvette Coffey this is not the first year that nursing students have expressed a lack of communication from NL Health Services on job positions. “Every time we go in every year they tell us, ‘oh no one’s really been in talking to us.’“
“It’s after I go to the media all of a sudden everybody’s in there talking to them. I shouldn’t have to be in the media to get recruiters into those nursing classes,” said Coffey.
When asked about communications to the students at the CNS St. John’s Campus, VP of human resources Debbie Molloy said that NLHS did a virtual session for all campuses on October 7th, and that regular emails are sent to students. “We’ll also be in there for a meet and greet,” she said.
“I believe the minister was actually in there as well in September, meeting with some of the students who will be graduating,” said Molloy.
When asked for details of the September visit via email, Department of Health and Community Services spokesperson Tina Coffey said that Minister Hogan “brought virtual greetings” to first-year nursing students during orientation.
Job security a concern for students
Ricketts also said that while many of 2024 grads received positions, many of those positions are not permanent.
“Its a bit frustrating knowing … my peers that I went to school with for four years don’t have any job security,” said Ricketts.
According to an access to information request, 54% of the 204 Bachelor of Nursing 2024 graduates hired by NL Health Services were for temporary positions, all of which were in the Eastern-Urban Zone.
Use of agency nurses worries students
RNU released a press release that said a student informed them an NLHS manager in the Central Zone said that “he prefers hiring private agency nurses because they are easier to make happy” and “admitted to not posting available positions at all, as it is simpler for him to bring in agency nurses.”
The Muse could not independently verify this claim. When asked at a press conference VP of HR for NLHS Debbie Molloy said they are “very sorry to hear that that happened and we’ve launched an investigation so that we can determine what exactly was said and then there will be appropriate action that will be taken after that.”
When nursing students Rebecca Penney and Michael Ricketts heard this anecdote from their classmate, they were appalled.
“It’s honestly baffling to hear things like that, especially as someone who has completed her nursing degree in the province, plans to stay in the province … that is a huge slap in the face,” said Penney.
According to an access to information request, as of March 18th, there are 340 private agency nurses working in the province. Molloy said that NLHS is committed to reducing the number of agency nurses and by 2026 plans to have the numbers at pre-pandemic levels.