The debate over what kind of minimum education nurses need is heating up.
Nurses’ union Fédération interprofessionelle de la santé du Québec, or FIQ, is calling attention to some changes the government is considering, including increasing the education nurses must receive for entry-level positions.
In Quebec, nurses are eligible to work after CEGEP, but the Quebec Order of Nurses is contemplating making an undergraduate degree compulsory for all nurses as early as 2014. The professional order voted in October 2011 to increase education requirements for incoming student nurses from the current college certificate to a university degree, to fall in line with tougher educational standards across Canada, in the United States and abroad.
FIQ calls the plan unrealistic, saying there must be adjustments at the university level to ensure there are adequate spaces and professors to graduate all new nurses.
“Its not just the fact of saying, we're going to graduate 3,000 nurses per year at the university level, it's how is the work organization is going to take place?” said FIQ union executive member Roberto Bomba. “How are the responsibilities, the tasks, involved on a daily basis within our healthcare sectors, how is that going to be change?”
A provincial task force is expected to make a recommendation on the issue by June.
