Erin Ariss, provincial president of the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), said that nursing is the most dangerous job in health care. “The prevalence of injuries, assaults, psychological violence in nursing exceeds all other professions put together, which shows why we need so many supports,” she said.
May 12 to 18 marks National Nursing Week, an annual week or recognition that is timed to coincide with the birthday of one of the most famous nurses in history, Florence Nightingale, an English social reformer from the late 1800s who is considered the founder of modern nursing.
This year, the theme of nursing week is “The power of nurses to transform health.” But, the transformation of health, and by extension health care, also requires that our nurses are able to protect and take care of their own well-being, Arris said.
“We represent over 60,000 nursing healthcare professions across all sectors of health care and beyond.” said Ariss. “In our collective agreements, there’s a number of things that we’ve certainly fought for and achieved where in some sectors, for some individuals, they receive unlimited mental health benefits.”
But Ariss said she does not necessarily see this as a win. “It’s actually quite telling that we require unlimited mental health benefits because of our working conditions.” Beyond their collective agreement, Ariss said there are additional supports available for nurses.
“The most important thing that we’re seeing develop over the past few years in particular is this sense of community and togetherness,” she said. “Because we know that isolation doesn’t improve anyone’s health. We’re seeing thousands of nurses joining together in the sense of community in this sense of in the spirit of camaraderie, to take action, and to advocate for themselves and our patients, and that is huge.
“(This is) a huge improvement over where we were before, where we suffered, were abused and neglected in silence and in isolation.”
Ariss said there is still work to be done. “We are seeing the fallout. We know that burnout rates are higher than any other sector. We know that. There’s been disruption in families, in childcare and elder care and that is a result of the exhaustion that nurses face.”
The ONA is not the only organization looking at how it can support its members. Hospitals also recognize the stresses that their nurses are under and are constantly improving the resources they provide to nurses. Terri Irwin is the chief nursing executive and executive vice-president of patient care services, for Trillium Health Partners (THP).
“I have to start by saying how incredibly proud we are of over 4,500 nurses here at THP and recognize that their work is not only complex and demanding, but also completely emotional.”
Irwin said Trillium is working hard to create an environment where nurses feel supported, valued and empowered to grow, through three main targeted strategies.
“The first thing is support for mental health. The second thing is mentorship. And the third thing is professional growth.” said Irwin. “In terms of mental health, we have our regular supports that are offered through our benefit programs. But in addition to that, we do offer additional mental health counseling sessions through our partnership with Insight Health Solutions.”
Irwin said this is in addition to the supports that its staff has available through its employee, family and assistance program, which is something that it fairly consistently offered across hospitals in Ontario. Within THP’s People Services Team there is also a wellness team that provide individuals or team leads with several counseling sessions per calendar year.
On the mentorship side of things, Irwin said, the hospital has partnered with the federal government in launching the Nursing Retention Toolkit. Started in March 2024, it is a national program meant to support and retain the 450,000 members of Canada’s largest group of regulated health professionals.
“We have paid a lot of attention to this in terms of ensuring that we have support for novice nurses who are entering into the workforce to ensure that they feel supported to transition because we know through evidence that novice nurses are most likely to leave the profession within the first couple of years because of the stress that they face.” said Irwin.
THP, she said, has also incorporated technology as part of their support plan, with the introduction of the WeMentor+ app for its members, through the support of the Registered Nurses Foundation of Ontario. This app is designed to connect experienced nurses with novice nurses to provide mentorship in the moment, or after the medical situation has been dealt with.
THP has also launched its TIPS — Transition to Independent Practice Support — program which allows for novice and experienced nurses to learn through a simulation-based environment. Irwin said that while it is important for THP to focus on novice nurses, it also wants to support and retain all its nurses.
“For our mid-career and experienced nurses here at THP, we have a program that’s called Investing in our People. Nurses who have a certain amount of experience under their belt are supported to develop and attend formal education and training,” Irwin said.
