Statement made on 13 May 2009 by Senator Lucie Pépin (retired)
Hon. Lucie Pépin:
Honourable senators, I am always proud to mark National Nursing Week, a week that celebrates my profession.
"Nursing: You Can't Live Without It!" is the theme of this year's week, and truer words were never spoken. Nurses are a vital part of our health care system. They play an essential role in patient management and advocate for patients' needs and rights.
By listening and sharing their knowledge, nurses help patients understand and accept illnesses and go through treatment. The contribution nurses make goes beyond clinical practice. They initiate informative, preventive and educational actions. They are active in educational institutions, where they give training and direct research. They serve in the Canadian Armed Forces, sometimes in the world's hottest spots. Nurses work with the public authorities to prepare our communities for the possibility of epidemics or disasters.
I would like to take this opportunity to again express my full support and my great admiration for Canada's nurses, who are always on the front lines. A nurse does not give up easily, but our health care system is fraught with challenges that complicate nurses' working lives. Staff shortages and deteriorating working conditions make it difficult for nurses to do their jobs safely. The solution to this problem is to pay nurses better and give them greater job security, but above all, to give them an appropriate work environment. This is how we can retain our current nursing staff and make it easier to recruit new nurses. Progress has been made in recruitment, but there is a serious shortage of nurses across the country.
As I said yesterday, if significant steps are not taken now, Canada will have a shortage of 60,000 nurses in 10 years. While it is true that the nursing shortage is a global problem, some countries such as ours have more pressing needs. The Canadian Nurses Association is constantly sounding the alarm. We need to be more attentive to these warnings and give more thought to the realistic solutions that this association has been proposing for a number of years.
Honourable senators, for the greater good of our health care system, I invite you to support nurses, who only want to do their job properly.