WHY NOT ASK NURSING STUDENTS?

Retired health workers not only ones who can help, writes Susan Collins.

On March 16, clinical placements around the country were cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Nursing students in their fourth year were sidelined, despite being a handful of shifts away from completing consolidation — the final placement needed before graduation.

The College of Nurses of Ontario recently called on retired nurses to return to practice to address the inevitable nursing shortage in the coming months.

If retired nurses are good enough to be on the front lines, why aren’t nursing students? We have the most current training.

The situation is similar around North America. Students in California are petitioning to return to clinicals and face the front lines, while their schools are advocating to the Board of Nurses to permit the students to graduate with only 50 per cent of their clinical placement hours completed.

In the United Kingdom, it’s a different story: A joint statement by the Nursing and Midwifery Council included a proposition to allow nursing students to volunteer for the opportunity to spend the last six months of their program in clinical placement as part of an emergency response by the council.

Looking back at previous epidemics, students have played pivotal roles by providing a source of endless free labour.

During the 2014 Ebola epidemic, a first-year nursing student developed a low-cost alternative to personal protective equipment, saving countless lives, including her own.

During the 2003 SARS outbreak, students at the University of Toronto were able to attend clinical placements after initially being pulled from the floor. The students followed the same guidelines as anyone else: If they became sick, they had to self-isolate for 10 days.

The students were able to graduate that year, due primarily to the resilience they demonstrated.

With regard to resilience: A 2006 study published by the CDC examines the attitudes of health-care workers during the SARS epidemic. The study speculated that workers who demonstrated resilience in other aspects of life also demonstrated resilience when coping with the outbreak.

According to a publication from the Public Health Agency of Canada, crises like these represent an invaluable learning opportunity for students. Unfortunately, instead of gaining any knowledge or learning new skills, nursing students in Ontario are helplessly sitting on the sidelines.

The College of Nurses of Ontario has the option right now to empower this year’s generation of new nurses by expediting our graduation through forgiving us the consolidation hours we missed.

Given a chance, they would find that many of us would rise to the occasion and answer the call to civic duty, just as the nursing students who came before us have.

Stay safe out there.

Susan Collins is a fourth-year student in the bachelor of science in nursing program, University of Ottawa.