TRU nursing school works to help fill critical shortage

KAMLOOPS — Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a spotlight was placed on the healthcare sector across canada.

Thanks in part to burnout, early retirement and people switching professions, hospitals like Royal Inland in Kamloops suffered from staffing shortages within their nursing ranks.

“Continue to help people understand that there is collaborative solutions and we need to actually be working on them. I think it’s very hard and very discouraging for students if all they hear is the doom and gloom,” said TRU Dean of Nursing Rani Srivastava.

It’s estimated that by 2030, the province of British Columbia will need 26,000 new nurses. Because of figures like that, the provincial government has been pledging money in recent years to increase nursing spaces at schools like Thompson Rivers University (TRU) where all their classes are full.

“We have just increased 10 seats within our bachelor programs; we have 10 LPNs coming into the bachelor program. And we are actually looking at that pathway to see how we can shorten the time from entry to graduation. That is some of the work we are doing,” said Srivastava.

Along with the 10 new seats, the dean also highlighted work is bring done to bring a new nursing program to the school.

“The other big area of focus for TRU School of Nursing over this past two years is looking at launching a nurse practitioner program. We’ve got funding from the government for 15 seats. We are working with all of the approval chain. It has been approved by TRU,” stated Srivastava.

Final approval of the program is expected in the new year.

Unfortunately, simply increasing nursing seats is not a silver bullet solution. It’s just one prong of what needs to be a multi-faceted approach including retention of staff.

“Part of it is who’s coming in. But if we don’t keep them over the long term, if we are losing them and we are losing them earlier and earlier given what’s happening… that just feels like a revolving door and it defeats the purpose. The more we take in the more we are losing,” said Srivastava. “I think the efforts have to be at multiple ends to really try to think about how we address the current challenges within nursing and health care.”

As for practicum placements at Royal Inland Hospital, interim executive director Gerry Desilets noted the facility needs to work harder improve the learning experience.

“We are really trying to improve our student experience. We are having welcoming boards and really trying to make the experience as great as it can be for our students because we know that they are our future. We need to make them feel comfortable, look at creating their own break space, and different areas where they can feel comfortable coming into the building,” added Desilets.

The partnership between TRU and RIH will be key in supporting the next group of nursing professionals in B.C.

“I think healthcare workers across all disciplines have risen to the challenge. We even heard from our students even when the pandemic was full on, ‘We know it’s going hard but we want to be there to make a difference,’” said Srivastava.