DNUR 135: Contemporary Issues In Nursing

Question 1

Discuss the statement: “Canadian healthcare and the national Medicare program continue to have significant problems with the delivery of health care services in the second decade of the 21’t century.

Canadian healthcare system is facing a lot of problems in delivering healthcare services today. Tommy Douglas created a Medicare system whose objective was to provide high-quality services for all Canadians. However, the system collapsed, and it is no longer in the same position. Canadians are proud of their health care system, but they are worried about the future of the system.  This is because a study conducted by commonwealth Canada was ranked six out of seven other countries. Drastic changes in the patient’s population is bringing a lot of challenges in the health care system of Canada because it forces the healthcare system to address a more culturally diverse population with various needs (Lewis, 2015). This population is made up of the graying baby boomer generation and geographic challenges of different communities across the country. The healthcare system has become more complex, and it needs more innovative solutions to solve the problems. The healthcare system in Canada is very much unstable, which means the health care system is spending a lot of capital which has dramatically affected the growth of the economy in the country. The increased expenditure is caused by inflation and an increase in the size of the population which has led to long waits in the emergency departments due to unavailable hospital beds for patients (Kerzner & Kerzner, 2017). The healthcare system of Canada is experiencing challenges in recruitment and retention of healthcare professionals. This is because, with the aging population, there is a decrease in some healthcare professionals which means in there are not enough physicians who can deliver health care services to the increasing population in the country.

Canada has been facing a lot of challenges in providing information and education to the public. The country should actively participate in comprehensive programs to inform the consumers and citizens’ dietary recommendations and about some ways in which they can improve their eating patterns, but this has not been the case (Hawkins, Virani & Ceconi, 2013). It is the role of the country to health care professionals on what diet recommendation they should give a patient according to their health condition. Consumers in Canada have not been given some principles which should guide them on what to eat instead of taking foodstuffs which are high in calories and can bring health complications into their bodies. The country does not allow citizens to have a choice. It is the role of the state to ensure that clients have a lot of options which they can take and be very significant to them. Healthcare professionals should be able to have alternatives in the kinds of medication and treatment they offer to patients. This helps them to be able to use a different type of treatment in case one fails, and it is, therefore, the role of these associations to ensure that they provide a variety of medications to healthcare institutions of Canada (Bowen & Graham, 2013). In Canada, citizens do not have access to health-promoting services which can enhance their health, and thus people from poor background have to suffer due to the high cost of health care services rendered in the country.

Question 2

Discuss some of the advantages and drawbacks to the recruitment of internationally educated nurses to fill Canadian vacancies. What are the ethics involved as well?

There are various advantages which Canada can gain by recruiting nurse internationally to fill vacancies in healthcare institutions. Hiring nurses from other country make it possible for the state to be able to have more better-trained nurses in the patient care. Therefore bringing those foreign nurses in Canada acts as an inspiration for other healthcare professionals as they now get the ability to seek assistance from the more trained nurses in a complicated situation which can lead to improved quality of health care services which are offered to patients (Delucas, 2014). Foreign nurses who are brought to the country are more willing to work than the ones already operating in Canada. This is because most of them especially the ones from developing countries don’t want to lose their jobs given the fact that, in Canada, they will be able to earn more as compared to what they can get from their countries. Having foreign nurses in Canada has brought in cultural infusion. Nurses from foreign countries can bring different cultural activities to the healthcare sector which can be used to enhance health care services in the country (Primeau, Champagne & Lavoie-Tremblay, 2014). Lastly, hiring foreign nurses in Canada is a significant temporary solution to nursing shortage which is facing the country. The state can depend on foreign nurses as they integrate their nursing program and institutions to ensure that they have enough nurses and other healthcare professionals in the country.

However, despite the benefits the country gains from recruiting foreign nurses to Canada, the state also experiences some challenges. Hiring foreign nurses makes the working condition of the existing nurses to stay unimproved (Prescott & Nichter, 2014). This is because the current situation which is facing healthcare system in Canada can be improved by offering better working conditions to existing nurses and other healthcare professionals and giving them better wages and thus importing new foreign nurses to the country reduces the morale of the already existing nurses. Recruiting foreign nurses to Canada discourages students from taking nursing programs in colleges which in the future will make the problem worse as they will be no healthcare professionals from the country and now the state will be forced to keep on importing more foreign nurses to the state. In some cases, the language barrier is a common problem which is experienced with foreign nurses (Chen,  Auerbach, Muench, Curry & Bradley, 2013). This can lead to a poor therapeutic relationship between them and patients and thus not in a position to offer their best healthcare services as expected. Another problem of recruiting foreign nurses is that the process takes a lot of time from six months to one year. There are various ethical issues which have to be considered by the country as the recruit foreign nurses. The state should ensure that the foreign nurses have informed consent in such a way that they have to ensure that the family and the patient are aware of the kind of medication and treatment which they have to administer to them. They should also ensure that the foreign nurse who has to be recruited is trustworthy in such a way that he/she will never lie regarding patient’s health status.

References

Bowen, S. J., & Graham, I. D. (2013). From knowledge translation to engaged scholarship: promoting research relevance and utilization. Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 94(1), S3-S8.

Chen, P. G., Auerbach, D. I., Muench, U., Curry, L. A., & Bradley, E. H. (2013). Policy solutions to address the foreign-educated and foreign-born health care workforce in the United States. Health Affairs, 32(11), 1906-1913.

Delucas, A. C. (2014). Foreign nurse recruitment: Global risk. Nursing ethics, 21(1), 76-85.

Hawkins, N. M., Virani, S., & Ceconi, C. (2013). Heart failure and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: the challenges facing physicians and health services. European heart journal, 34(36), 2795-2807.

Kerzner, H., & Kerzner, H. R. (2017). Project management: a systems approach to planning, scheduling, and controlling. John Wiley & Sons.

Lewis, S. (2015). A system in name only—access, variation, and reform in Canada’s provinces. New England Journal of Medicine, 372(6), 497-500.

Prescott, M., & Nichter, M. (2014). Transnational nurse migration: future directions for medical anthropological research. Social Science & Medicine, 107, 113-123.

Primeau, M. D., Champagne, F., & Lavoie-Tremblay, M. (2014). Foreign-trained nurses’ experiences and socioprofessional integration best practices: an integrative literature review. The health care manager, 33(3), 245-253.