Canada has a nurse shortage just like the US. But ours is probably far worse given the relatively closed immigration policies we have for nurses and the country's lack of foresight in opening more nursing programs and training more nursing instructors. The fact that the Canadian Nursing Association has issued a report recognizing the importance of foreign nurses in the Canadian health care system is certainly noteworthy given that a union would have a natural inclination to want to keep the supply of workers in their field in tight supply. How's this for enlightened:

Immigration is one recognized strategy to ensure sufficient numbers of knowledge workers in the health sciences. Many health professions in Canada, including nursing, are reporting shortages in personnel. A 30 per cent shortage of registered nurses is projected for the next decade. Steps have been taken to alleviate this shortage, including increasing the number of admissions at Canadian nursing schools and improving working conditions to retain more nurses. Nonetheless, CNA believes that effectively addressing the nursing shortage requires a national, integrated health human resource strategy that includes the recognition of immigration as one tactic.

The conventional wisdom in the US is that the American Nursing Association has been blocking nursing immigration legislation in this country. But I believe that this is a myth based on past positions taken by the ANA (which, by the way, is a professional association and no longer a union). I think the ANA would be willing to accept more nurses from abroad with certain concessions - a tax to fund domestic nurse education programs, guarantees that nurses that receive funding from their countries pay back such loans or get their country to otherwise sign of before emigrating (to address brain drain concerns), etc. Look for legislation addressing nurses in the coming months.

My chief contention with the article is a statement noting that nurse salaries rose only 1.6% last year and that was partly due to foreign nurses. A) There's no evidence that this is true and B) the number of foreign nurses coming to the US has been relatively small compared to the size of the nursing profession and nursing immigration has been going on for years including several years over the last decade where nursing salaries skyrocketed.

A new Medical Tourism Association has been formed to credential foreign hospitals in order for American patients to be able to make informed choices on the quality of overseas hospitals. As I've reported, the health care crisis in the US - sky high insurance premiums and a lack of insurance all together coupled with nurse and physician shortages - has led many Americans to consider going abroad for treatment. The MTA could be an important step in making medical tourism more realistic for many. Presumably, foreign hospitals interested in American patients will want to seek credentialing in order to demonstrate that they are on a par with American facilities.

Not exactly a US health care immigration issue, but interesting nonetheless.

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