MANITOULIN—The news is good at least for the next year for the Manitoulin Health Centre and hospitals throughout Ontario in terms of the nursing graduate guarantee program continuing.
“We had a good meeting with (health) ministry officials this week on our concerns, and also reiterated our strong feelings of the usefulness of the program,” stated Derek Graham, chief executive officer of the Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC), late last week. “We stressed if any changes were made to the program that would hinder our ability to access the program would be devastating to us and other hospitals.”
“The ministry representatives committed to work with us and stakeholders and they understand the issues and concerns,” said Mr. Graham. “The ministry indicated they will work with us over the next year and said their intention is not to clawback funding that has been made available.”
The nursing graduate guarantee program is supported by the ministry with funding generated through Health Force Ontario. The intent of the program is to provide an opportunity for new nursing grads to work a full-time rotation for six months. Mr. Graham had explained previously the way the program has worked is that the MHC fund an additional six weeks for any nurses in the program and the ministry provides supplemental funding so nurses get six months full-time experience. Subsequent to that, once they (nurses) graduate they can transit into jobs available and typically the MHC looks at a rotation of how many new grads could it support at both sites (Little Current and Mindemoya).
The benefits of the program are that hospitals have a streamline mechanism in place-a captive audience where college and university students can look for job opportunities, explained Mr. Graham. Secondly, nursing graduates now have six months in a safe landing pad where they can move to a community and have assurance they can transition and move to and have the money to come here. And then usually hospitals transition them into jobs when there is an opening.
In November the MHC received notice from the province that the program was going to change on April 1, 2017. The MHC would require providing transition for a new grad into permanent full-time work and have to do within a one year period from when the nursing graduate starts with the organization. If not, the ministry would claw the funding back. The MHC and other hospitals in the Northeast and Northwest were concerned that if the ministry followed through on the changes they couldn’t take advantage of this program.
Mr. Graham said the MHC has from six to eight of the nursing students within its midst each year. “The good news is that the program will continue, and the ministry will continue to dialogue with hospitals, and that they are willing to work with us to develop the process for this program.”
