The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union is raising the alarm about the stresses faced by new nurses in light of a recent Ontario study of burnout in the profession.

A study of 225 junior nurses across Ontario suggests 66 per cent had symptoms of burnout, such as emotional exhaustion and depression, less than two years into their jobs, said researchers at the University of Western Ontario.




The nurses pointed to work overload, lack of fairness in the workplace, poor interpersonal relationships and lack of empowerment as contributing to burnout.

MNU president Maureen Hancharyk says she hears stories daily about the stresses faced by new nursing graduates. She says it's not realistic to expect nursing graduates to adjust to today's typical hospital environment, where facilties designed for acute or short-term care are often filled with chronic-care patients.

"What terrifies them is they don't have the experience or the skills to look after the severely ill people we see in hospitals today," she said, noting hospitals tend to discharge patients as soon as they are able to care for themselves, which means only very sick people remain in beds.

"These young nurses aren't equipped yet to deal with that, and they are put into situations that are way beyond their abilities."

'Emotionally draining'

Kara Taylor, who has been nursing for three years, says her training didn't prepare her for the emotional toll of her job.

"The emotional stress is the most. I wasn't prepared that well for how emotionally draining it is to work 12-hour shifts with a heavy workload," she said.

Taylor says she knows of two nurses who were so stressed and overwhelmed by their jobs that they left the hospital to work in personal-care homes.

Hancharyk says both employers and the union have a part to play in making the transition for new grads into the workplace less stressful.

She would like to see a mentoring clause in the next collective agreement that would free up experienced nurses to work with new ones – something that isn't often possible now, she says, due to the heavy workload facing the experienced nurses.

With files from Canadian Press