Canada is already scooping up doctors from South Africa, and now Edmonton is recruiting New Zealand's nurses. The city is already well on its way to recruiting 250 registered nurses overseas, most of them in New Zealand. Sixty-one nurses have already accepted offers from the Capital Health Region, and another 114 have applied. Executive nursing officer Wendy Hill is “quite optimistic” the region will meet its recruiting target. The recruiting effort is considered an interim measure while Alberta builds up its health care workforce, partly by increasing enrolment in its nursing and medical schools.
The 1-year contracts offered to the recruits appear to be a popular feature for the nurses, who receive temporary permits before having to sit their Canadian exams. Hill said the chief advantage of hiring nurses in New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom is that the new arrivals are able to begin work with minimal orientation. New Zealand's health care system is being hit particularly hard by foreign recruiters, since many of its young physicians head to Australia to practise (see CMAJ 2001;164[1]:80).
The region has also attracted 90 new Alberta-trained nurses through a mentoring program. These nurses, whose positions are above the regular complement, work with an experienced colleague for a year and are then offered regular positions. Without the program, says Hill, many of these new nurses would have headed to the US. The association representing Alberta nurses did not have data on the number of nurses who have left for the US.