National Nursing Week will be held next week.
From Monday, May 8th to Sunday, May 14th, nurses in Canada will be put front and centre as the country thanks them for all that they do. On top of the recognition, the RBC Foundation is donating $60,000 to support skills development for nurses at Georgetown and Milton District hospitals.
The Georgetown Hospital Foundation and Milton District Hospital Foundation will each receive $10,000 per year for each of the next three years, and will use the funds to help address the critical need of providing paediatric training for Emergency Department nurses.
The donation will enable each hospital to provide Pediatric Emergency Assessment, Recognition, and Stabilization (PEARS) training for our Emergency Department nurses. PEARS training is designed to give nurses the opportunity to acquire, practice, and demonstrate proficiency in the assessment and management of critically ill pediatric patients.
At Milton District Hospital, 30% of patients who visit the Emergency Department are paediatric. The funding will enable 40 Emergency Department nurses to receive the training each year.
“Nurses play a crucial role in every area of our hospital,” says Helen Vatistas, Executive Director, Milton District Hospital Foundation. “Our nurses demonstrate care, courage and commitment to patients each and every day. We are grateful that the RBC Foundation understands the value that nurses bring to Milton District Hospital and that they are investing our nurses.”
The show of support comes at a critical time. During the Fall of 2022 the Emergency Departments at both hospitals saw a large increase in paediatric patients with respiratory viruses.
Recent Statistics Canada data also shows Canadian frontline healthcare workers are feeling strained and overloaded. In July, Statistics Canada reported 23,620 vacant nursing positions in the first quarter of 2022 (up 219% from 2019), and an all-time high of 136,800 job vacancies within the health sector throughout the first quarter of 2022. Recent data released by Mental Health Research Canada also shows that healthcare workers, and nurses in particular, were profoundly impacted by the pandemic.
“Nurses play a vital role in building prosperous, healthy communities for today and for the future,” says Rick Atherton, Regional Vice President, RBC. “Each year, RBC is proud to recognize the contributions and commitments of nurses by supporting their ongoing access to training and resources. It’s our small way of saying ‘thank you’ to these courageous individuals.”
Held in honour of nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, National Nursing Week is designed to increase the awareness of the many contributions nursing makes to the wellbeing of Canadians.
The RBC Foundation has been supporting nurses’ access to education, training, resources, and most recently including mental health care, since 2009. This year’s commitment of more than $500,000 over three years will provide funding to 22 hospitals in Southwestern Ontario bringing the total investment in local nursing to $1.7 million by 2025.
