Glen Korstrom
Northern News Services

NNSL (May 11/98) - Dozens of nurses from around the NWT gathered to discuss mutual concerns such as recruitment, retention problems and potential pay raises earlier this month.

But most discussion centred on a little discussed aspect of Northern nursing: training requirements.

Delegates passed a resolution 52 to 9 that the NWT Registered Nurses Association believes a university degree in nursing training best prepares nurses to "meet the competencies" required of a new practitioner.

The contention surrounded whether to attach a deadline, or a target date for mandatory degrees that all nurses could agree with.

In the end the resolution passed with no target date.

"The goal of the program is to have people from the North stay in the North and work in their own communities," said Denise Bowen, chair of health programs at Aurora College. "How best can we do that?"

Bowen argued that attaching a target date would be out of sync with most provinces.

"To put a date too soon will only put egg on our faces," agreed Kimmirut nurse Rob Nevin.

Nevin said few people on the Baffin have university degrees, so passing resolutions reading that university degrees are required before nurses could meet initial qualifications would only deter candidates from embarking on the career.

"It's not showing them my job is available to them if it means they have to go to Iqaluit for two years and then down south for two years."

Iqaluit's Susan Hotson agreed.

"Are we going to be discouraging them? They might say, 'I'm not going to be a nurse unless I go to university.'"

Association president Nell Vrolyk said she supports the resolution as it passed because it shows university training is desirable in principle but there is no deadline for implementation.