'At least this shows me that they want me to stay.'

Community health nurses in Nunavut know what they need to stay on the job.

But they don't expect the territory's new nursing recruitment and retention strategy, which health minister Leona Aglukkaq was expected to table in the Nunavut legislature this week, will meet all their needs.

"Right now, nurses in Nunavut are getting shafted," said a nurse who had seen some of the strategy's highlights, which circulated widely among nurses.

Among other incentives to recruit and retain nurses, she said the strategy will offer increased yearly cash bonuses, a housing subsidy and more access to on-the-job education.

"The incentives they are talking about will be helpful," said this indeterminate – or permanent – nurse from a small Nunavut community, who did not wish to be identified. "If I wanted to leave, I would leave, but at least this shows me that they want me to stay."

The nurse wants:

• More community health nurses, so that in small nursing stations nurses aren't always on call;
• Pay equity with agency and international nurses, and higher pay for overtime work, so she is adequately compensated for her long hours and doesn't have to "scrimp and save" money to go south to see her family;
• Retention bonuses based on years of service;
• Housing allowances, rather than access to subsidized housing, which could be used for either rental units or privately-owned housing; and
• Education allowances, similar to those in the Northwest Territories, where permanent full-time nurses receive $2,000 a year to use on educational courses to upgrade their skills or keep their accreditation in specific areas of nursing.

Although money isn't everything, other northern regions such as the Northwest Territories or Nunavik offer much larger bonuses and more travel perks than Nunavut is considering, the nurse said.

Alberta offers nurses a wage package that allows them to study to become a nurse practitioner and then work for a period of time.

Nunavut's lack of a travel allowance also tempts this nurse to give up her permanent job to become a agency nurse, flown in and out of the territory free-of-charge.

"It's getting to the point that I would go casual and let them fly me all over," the nurse says. "A lot of government officials don't get that it's not just about the money. Of course, I'm here for the money, but we give a lot to be here away from family and friends."

As well, she deals with the challenges mentioned by nurses at Iqaluit's old Baffin Regional Hospital. She's been bitten, insulted, and intimidated and says she's incessantly called at home to respond to minor complaints.

At the same time, this nurse, like most community health nurses, bears many responsibilities usually assigned to doctors elsewhere in the country.

While this nurse agrees that agency nurses are a fact of life due to the nursing shortage, she said the rotations can be difficult. "Sometimes, you are dreading the sound of their plane coming in, sometimes you can't wait to see them again."

But she said she doesn't see Nunavut's encouragement of casual, job-sharing nurses as the cure-all for the territory's nursing shortage, because the likelihood of a nurse seeing the same patient more than once a year would be low.

"It's not solving the problem," she said.

On Oct. 29, Aglukkaq told the legislature that she planned to submit her new recruitment and retention strategy to cabinet's financial management board on Nov. 5 for the final approval she needed to release the document.

"Hopefully, I would be able to do that before the session ends on Nov. 9," she said.

Once it's released, Aglukkaq promised to "speak to the specifics of the strategy."