Alberta introducing more internationally-educated health care workers to workforce
More internationally-educated health workers are being introduced across Alberta to help fill the gaps in the current health care system.
This comes after the federal government announced $86 million in funding for health professional accreditation and to address shortages.
This past year, Edmonton’s NorQuest College received similar funding from the provincial government for its internationally educated program.
Rudo Mapanga is one of the students in the program. She immigrated to Alberta two years ago to pursue a better life and education for her children.
Mapanga got a degree in nursing in her home country of Zimbabwe and a Ph.D. in South Africa. She then worked as a lecturer at a University in Kazakhstan for 6 years. But when she came to Canada, she was told not all her credentials were recognized.
“From my research, the outcome was that I was not likely going to get a job,” Mapanga said. “My plan was since I have a degree in nursing, the first thing I have to pursue once in Canada is to rejuvenate my nursing career. I never worked as a nurse despite having a degree in nursing.”
To start working again in Alberta she decided last year to get her Practical Nurse Diploma for Internationally Educated Students at NorQuest College.
“The approach is more or less the same but then here in this case we are learning things which are more relevant to the Canadian context,” Mapanga said.
Ayshea Thornton is the academic program manager at NorQuest and says a lot of the students who come to the program already have the skills and education to be nurses in Canada.
Thornton says more than often those who deal with these challenges end up either leaving the health profession entirely or taking lower-paid work.
“A program like the
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