A Comparative Analysis of the Nursing Shortage in Canada Reports

This report provides an in-depth analysis of the nursing shortage in Canada, examining the causes, contributing factors, and potential solutions to this critical issue. The report begins with an overview of the nursing shortage, defining the problem and highlighting the severity of the situation in Canada, where a significant shortage of nurses is predicted in the coming years. The analysis draws upon three different sources: a newspaper report, a research review, and a fact sheet from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN). The report compares and contrasts these sources, evaluating their credibility and providing a synthesis of the key findings. The study emphasizes the factors contributing to the shortage, such as the increasing number of retiring nurses, insufficient enrollment in nursing schools, and a lack of teaching faculty. The author reflects on the issue, offering a personal and professional perspective. The conclusion emphasizes the need for effective intervention strategies to mitigate the nursing shortage and ensure the health and well-being of the population. The report also discusses the role of different stakeholders in addressing the shortage and the future implications of the issue.

Running head: NURSING SHORTAGE
Nursing Shortage
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Nurses and Health care system shares an integral connection when it comes to the point of
imparting health services all across the globe. For achieving a state of optimal quality of health,
and for promoting the improvement of health status, The World Health Organisation, states the
need for the increase in health care staff and professionals, by 2030. Moreover, professionally,
Nurses form the most extensive professional unit globally and constitute almost more than 50%
of the total health workforce. As per the reports of World Health Organisation (WHO, 2014), and
World Bank (2014), there has been a shortage in the number of nurses and midwives, which
accounts for 9 million, and a further reduction to 7.6 million by 2030. This leads to the
conception of the issue, known as "Nursing Shortage." As the term defines, it generally refers to
the situation in which the demand of the nurses exceeds the present supply, on different
geographical levels (Haryanto, 2019). The various measures to determine the availability of
nurses and potential nursing shortage is to calculate the nurse-to-population ration, nurse-to-
patient ratio or accounting the number of nursing job openings, which should be in compliance to
the demand of nurses. Nursing Shortage has been a serious matter of concern in the Canadian
state. The Canadian Nurses Association, warns that the nation will experience extreme nursing
shortage issues in the upcoming years (French & Emed, 2018). As per the predictions of CNA,
there will be a shortage of 60,000 nurses by the year 2022. Therefore, this study will emancipate
an articulate analysis related to the lack of nursing staff in Canada, based on three relevant
reports or reviews. A comparative and summative analytical view of these three studies, along
with a reflective take on the said issue, will also be put forth.
Article 1: Newspaper Report - Nursing shortage a problem in Canada (CNN News, 2018)
This article puts forth a summative report about the prevalent issue regarding the shortage
of nurses in Canada. According to this news report, "There's an acute nursing shortage in the

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United States, but schools are turning away thousands of qualified applicants as they struggle to
expand class size and hire more teachers for nursing programs’’. This report laid emphasis on
the fact that there has been an ever-increasing deploration in the count of the working and
available nursing professionals, accompanied by an inherent rise in the demand for more nursing
staff (Snavely, 2016). The report stated the estimates of American Nursing Association, that the
current count of nurses in the United States is 3 million, demanding an increase in another one
million by 2022, to provide stability to the health services all around the state (Bittner & Bechtel,
2018). The article also displays one of the central underlying cause behind this issue, that is, the
less enrollment of students in the nursing schools, with a consequent reduction in the count of
newly joining nurses in the health units (Ariste, Béjaoui & Dauphin, 2019). Moreover, there has
been an enhanced growth in the rate of drop-outs and retired cases of nurses. The report has also
put forth the data given by American colleges of Nursing, stating, that in 2017, nearly about
56000 of the total applicants for the nursing profession, were turned down by the nursing
colleges. The reason behind this, is considered to be, the dearth of efficient teaching staff, which
cascades into the shortened enrollment of nursing students and the resultant shortage of nurses.
Article 2: The nursing shortage in the United States: an integrative review of the literature
This research review put forth a summative view about the increased trends of shortage
or scarcity of nurses all over the world. This study further validated about the increased threat in
the nursing profession and subsequently in the health unit given the enhanced number of nurses
retiring and a considerably lesser number of individuals joining the profession (Owenz, 2019).
Therefore, in this aspect, there is an urgent need for interventions and plans for combatting this
global shortage of nurses (Anderson, 2019). This article has put forth a summarized view of the
manifold strategies which are been initiated to combat the growing demand for RNs (Registered

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Nurses) by stakeholders and various agencies, the consequent outcomes of those efforts, and the
future challenges and risks that is dawing in the profession (Haddad & Toney-Butler, 2019). The
study put forth a conclusive view on the positive effect of the interventions in curbing the
shortage but also laid stress on the fact that the problem continued to persist in some countries,
including Canada. It also emphasized the complications and challenges. These included limited
opportunities for the fresher nurses, problems regarding the standard of nursing education and a
proper way-out for assessment of the capabilities of the nurses, along with the need for
implementation of the concerning guidelines, are among the challenges faced by profession
(Thakkar, 2019).
Article 3: AACN Fact Sheet (2019)
This study is a combined input on the prevalent and persistent issue of Nursing Shortage
in the United States, as put forth by the American Association of Colleges for Nursing. The study
emphasized the prevailing factors related to the issue, as well as discussed the different current
and projected indicators related to it. The American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN)
has opened a collaborative front with schools, policymakers, nursing organizations, and the
media to lay a focused approach to this healthcare concern. The AACN has thereby also focused
on its resources to form collaborations, identify strategies, and shape legislations to address the
shortage of nurses in America (Park & Yu, 2019). This fact sheet displayed the reported as well
as statistical views of reputed and authentic journals and websites. The fact sheet reported the
data represented in the Journal of Nursing regulation (2017), which dealt with “Four Challenges
Facing the Nursing Workforce in the United States.”, and concluded that RNs , that is, the count
of retired nurses are increasing rapidly and by 2030, it will reach 1 million, without a proper
backup of newly enrolled nurses. Another chief indicator that was put forth was the

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unavailability of faculty and resultant reduction in nursing students. According to a 2018-2019
AACN’s report on Enrollment and Graduations in Baccalaureate and Graduate Programs in
Nursing, it was stated that the nursing schools in America retrieved back more than 75,000
competent applicants from graduate nursing programs and baccalaureate in 2018. The reasons
were the insufficient number of faculty (Vandyke et al., 2017) dearth of practical classroom
facilities, as well as, classroom space, as well as budget issues.
The studies summarized above has provided an array of information about the incurring
shortage of nurses. The first article was based on a newspaper report, presented by CNN, which
gave away a significant reason behind this crisis. Though the article was not based on any
primary or secondary research but was a collection of different viewpoints of various
stakeholders related to the health profession and how it is relevant to the concerning issue. There
are, however, no specific statistical figures cited and researched by this article to support its
suggestions on the nursing shortage (Kavilanz, 2018). Therefore, based on the article alone, there
is limited support used to strengthen its claims. Thus, from this article, one can make his or her
derivations simply based on the various statements and personal observations on the nursing
shortage.
The second article (Marz et al., 2018) was based on a review of the other relevant
researches. The study published by the International Review of Nursing put forth a theoretical
review about the different factors related to nursing shortage in Canada and other countries of the
world. Moreover, Studies included in this literature review are adequately summarized,
highlighting the crucial problems causing the nursing shortage along with the possible
interventions as well as the limitations. The materials gathered were well-analyzed and are very
much appropriate for this research. Statistical figures based on logical and academic processes,

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as well as adequate and valid citations, were used to support the results are proving the
credibility of this author and this article.
The Third article was based on a fact sheet presented by AANC (2019), which dealt with
the various indicators and factors that contribute to Nursing Shortage. This source can also be
considered as credible and relevant, given the summarised view of different other journals and
reputed organizations were put forth, and also, the article was of the American Association of
Colleges of Nursing. Moreover, the proper use of statistical figures and appropriate references
further increased the relevance of the study.
My personal values about this issue are that there is indeed a nursing shortage, not just in
the United States or Canada, but globally as well. And the rise in this concerning issue is
perceived to continue further. Two of the main reasons which come into the forefront, was the
enhanced rise in the count of retired nurses, along with a reduced rate of employment of freshers
in the nursing unit. Also, the lack of active teaching faculty has further contributed to the
shortage. Therefore, the only probable solution is to formulate an adaptive intervention plan to
tackle the crisis. My personal and professional viewpoint is that, I can assess the given problem
with the help of the aforesaid articles as well as, could jot down a conclusion.
Therefore, this study concludes that nursing shortage is indeed, an overlying concern all
across the world. The sporadic reduction in the number of nursing professionals, for various
reasons, as articulated above, have consistently laid a concerning effect on the maintenance of
health systems and services. Therefore, the only way-out, for dealing with this extreme shortage
of nurses in the health community, is the planning and implementation of an effective and
adaptive intervention.

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References
AACN (2020). Fact Sheets. Aacnnursing.org. Retrieved 10 April 2020, from
https://www.aacnnursing.org/news-information/fact-sheets/nursing-shortag
Anderson, B. A. (2019). Facing the nursing workforce shortage: policies and initiatives to
promote a resilient healthcare system. In Caring for the Vulnerable (p. 363). Jones and
Bartlett Learning, Burlington, MA
Ariste, R., Béjaoui, A., & Dauphin, A. (2019). Critical analysis of nurses' labour market
effectiveness in Canada: The hidden aspects of the shortage. The International journal of
health planning and management, 34(4), 1144-1154.
Bittner, N. P., & Bechtel, C. F. (2017). Identifying and describing nurse faculty workload issues:
A looming faculty shortage. Nursing education perspectives, 38(4), 171-176.
French, S. E., & Emed, J. D. (2018). Nursing in Canada. In Nursing and Globalization in the
Americas (pp. 225-274). Routledge.
Haddad, L. M., & Toney-Butler, T. J. (2019). Nursing shortage. In StatPearls [Internet].
StatPearls Publishing.
Haryanto, M. (2019). Nursing shortage: Myth or fact?. Orthopaedic Nursing, 38(1), 1-2.
Kavilanz, P. (2018). There's an acute nursing shortage in the US, but schools are rejecting
thousands of applicants. CNNMoney. Retrieved 10 April 2020, from
https://money.cnn.com/2018/04/30/news/economy/nursing-school-rejections/index.html

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Marć, M., Bartosiewicz, A., Burzyńska, J., Chmiel, Z., & Januszewicz, P. (2019). A nursing
shortage–a prospect of global and local policies. International nursing review, 66(1), 9-
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Owens, N. (2019). The nursing shortage: A status report. Journal of Nursing Education and
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Park, H., & Yu, S. (2019). Effective policies for eliminating nursing workforce shortages: A
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Snavely, T. M. (2016). A brief economic analysis of the looming nursing shortage in the United
States. Nursing Economics, 34(2), 98-101.
Thakkar, A. (2019). Examining the Demand for Higher Education Nursing in Relation to the
Nursing Shortage.
Vandyk, A., Chartrand, J., Beké, É., Burlock, L., & Baker, C. (2017). Perspectives from
academic leaders of the nursing faculty shortage in Canada. International journal of
nursing education scholarship, 14(1).
WHO (2018). World Health Organization- Global Health Workforce Statistics... Retrieved 10
April 2020, from https://www.who.int/hrh/statistics/hwfstats/en/