I call this “solving the wrong problem”
So the Alberta government’s genius idea (*COUGH!*) to reform the health care system in the province is…to make it harder for nurses working part-time to qualify for benefits?
What?
The provincial service optimization review final draft suggests that one way to address a predicted shortfall of 6,000 nurses by 2020 would be to change their contracts so they have to work more hours to get benefits.
…It suggests that increasing the number of work hours required to earn benefits and replacing part-time and overtime incentives with initiatives to promote full-time employment might encourage more nurses to work more hours.
“Given that over half of the province’s current nursing force works part time, Alberta could address a large proportion of its current and future nursing shortages by increasing the productivity of non-full-time nurses or by increasing the number of full-time nurses closer to the Canadian average,” says the private consultant’s report.
So basically, the report’s suggestion for solving the problem of nursing shortages is…to ask more nurses to work full-time (or near full-time) hours, and to hold their benefits ransom if they don’t immediately agree?
Hunh?
The report also suggests that improving the work environment and expanding training programs would help overcome the 1,500-nurse shortfall and avoid falling further behind.
The following might shock some government employees and consultants to learn, but the problem isn’t the lack of training programs. There are excellent training programs, including two institutions here in Edmonton with full degree-granting capability. There’s plenty of training available for those who want to become nurses.
It’s just that nobody wants to become a nurse anymore…or, at least, that fewer and fewer people are feeling like that’s the career they’d want to pursue.
Our society is progressively becoming more selfish and inwardly-focused, so it’s only natural that careers which demand a degree of self-giving/self-sacrifice/compassionate care for others are struggling to endure. People are simply becoming to “me”-centric to be bothered working in a field that requires you to care for the sick, the homeless, and the dying.
(And how making it harder to qualify for benefits while working as a nurse is supposed to improve the appeal of the position, I’ve no idea.)
Steynian 299 « Free Canuckistan! (December 20, 2008, 2:06 pm).
[...] CANUCKI HELF KARE: I call this “solving the wrong problem”; and saith Scott Geezer Gilbreath, “How [...]