The province is making an investment to help internationally trained nurses get their licenses sooner.
It’s providing one-time funding of $340,000 to the Nova Scotia College of Nursing to help with the review of the registration and licensing process for these workers.
The review is looking at how to better streamline the requirements. The funding will also be used to hire new staff to support the work.
“The demand for healthcare professionals, including nurses, has increased since the pandemic started, with all jurisdictions competing to attract these highly skilled workers,” Health Minister Michelle Thompson says in a news release. “Today’s announcement builds upon other important initiatives to secure and retain nurses throughout Nova Scotia, including the government’s commitment to fund 200 new nursing seats and guarantee every nurse graduate over the next five years a full-time job.”
The college has already been working to make registration and licensing more efficient. Some of the changes include adding more options for internationally educated nurses to meet the English language proficiency registration requirement and providing earlier access to the national registration exam.
The province says as a result the number of internationally educated nurses has seen a significant increase. So far this year, more than 210 nurses have obtained their licence. That’s up by about 60 compared to all of 2021.
Currently, there are 185 internationally educated nurse applicants in the registration and licensing process.
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