A group of nurses in Manitoba is heading south of the border next month to upgrade their skills — something they say they'd have to wait years to do here at home.
The 15 licensed practical nurses are taking courses through Northland College in Minnesota to become registered nurses.
Frances Fleming Lavallee, an LPN for 20 years in Manitoba, told CBC News it could take five to eight years to get into a similar upgrade program at Red River College in Winnipeg.
"It's sad, because Minnesota's saying, 'Yeah, we value what you've done and we value what your experience is, and we want you to come down here,' and that's not what I feel in Manitoba at all," she said.
Another LPN, Anita Peters, agreed — wondering why Manitoba isn't making it easier for nurses to upgrade.
"With the nursing crisis … you would think that they would either put more classes, more instruction, [or] open more schools of nursing to accommodate the numbers that are banging on their doors to be educated," she said.
"Our population is growing. They're going to need more nurses. Our growing elderly, our geriatric population is exploding. We need to have nurses in place to look after these folks."
Group members said they have already spent hundreds of dollars on tests and visas in anticipation of online and on-site classes at the school next year. The eight-month program, which involves about two days per week on the Thief River Falls campus, will cost each person up to $10,000.
Before they will be allowed to practise as RNs in Manitoba, the nurses will have to apply as international students and take an exam, Peters said.
Despite the obstacles, more nurses will head south to further their educations if Manitoba doesn't address the shortage of space in nursing programs, warned Maureen Hancharyk, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.
"If something isn't done soon, it'll be, you know, before long hundreds and not just a dozen," she said.
Part of the concern is that those students may opt to remain in the U.S. after they've completed the course.
Christopher Twiss said he hopes to continue working in Manitoba when the course is done, "but if I'm sitting there in Minnesota or wherever, and they're sitting there with $15,000 signing bonus offers and all these things — well, I'm going to think about it."
Hancharyk said she has raised this issue with the health minister, but has not yet heard anything back.
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