{"id":30552,"date":"2022-01-06T12:24:54","date_gmt":"2022-01-06T17:24:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=30552"},"modified":"2022-01-06T12:28:19","modified_gmt":"2022-01-06T17:28:19","slug":"local-candidate-joins-calls-for-quicker-recognition-of-foreign-nursing-credentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/local-candidate-joins-calls-for-quicker-recognition-of-foreign-nursing-credentials\/","title":{"rendered":"Local candidate joins calls for quicker recognition of foreign nursing credentials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By day, Iranian-Canadian Marjan Kasirlou is a home dialysis coordinator for Humber River Hospital. This fall, she will hit the ground running as a Provincial candidate in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill for the Ontario Liberal Party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, and in between, the internationally-educated nurse is pressing the Ontario Government to speed up the process of recognizing foreign nursing credentials to help ease the system that is under extreme pressure due to the ongoing global pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ms. Kasirlou, who was confirmed as the candidate for Aurora\u2019s south riding this past fall, joined Ontario Liberal Leader Steven Del Duca and fellow nurses who are part of the party\u2019s slate of candidates to call on Premier Doug Ford to do just that in the days leading up to Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs an internationally-educated nurse, I have been through the lengthy process of getting credentialled in Ontario,\u201d she told reporters at a news conference last month. \u201cSo many haven\u2019t been registered and haven\u2019t been able to get credentialled yet. The time is now to roll out that measure. We have so many nurses in Ontario who come with a lot of amazing backgrounds, experiences and knowledge. We have registered nurses with PhD degrees, Masters degrees, and will have to wait a couple of years\u2026. I am seeing a lot of nurses in Ontario right now working in different capacities [and] it is not unique to nursing, it is through other professions in the healthcare system. We have some physicians who are working in different sectors and they don\u2019t want to go through a lengthy process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout the fight against COVID-19, doctors and nurses have proved themselves \u201cthe true heroes\u201d of the pandemic. Now, Mr. Del Duca agrees, is time for Ontario to show its support for the profession.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we don\u2019t have the women and men, the registered nurses on the frontlines, feeling supported, feeling like they have everything they need to succeed, we will not have the healthcare system Ontarians deserve,\u201d he said. \u201cLike Marjan at one point in time, they are there, they exist in Ontario, they want to help, they want to practice their profession, they want to do the job they were trained to do, and we need their help.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe fact we continue to throw out obstacles and impediments to stop them from participating in our collective progress makes no sense to me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having this talent \u201con the sidelines\u201d is a result of the process being \u201ctoo cumbersome, too complex, and too slow to make sure their credentials are recognized here,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy this hasn\u2019t been a priority for the past 20 months, I haven\u2019t a clue. If we have thousands of nurses \u2013 registered nurses and others \u2013 leaving the system and not wanting to join the profession, what does that say for people in Doug Ford\u2019s riding and the ridings of the rest of his members? Maybe they think this is partisan politics, but it\u2019s not.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Streamlining the foreign credentials recognition program is not the only issue related to nursing proposed by the Liberal leader. The conference was also an opportunity to press the government to repeal Bill 124, which caps compensation increases for Registered Nurses and others on the frontlines at 1 per cent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen you were losing registered nurses in record numbers because they are exhausted, because they are burnt out, because they are going elsewhere to practice their profession, you need to actually have a proper and respectful relationship,\u201d he said. \u201cBill 124 is an absolute non-starter if we want to have the healthcare system that Ontarians deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong>
Editor
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter<\/em><\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By day, Iranian-Canadian Marjan Kasirlou is a home dialysis coordinator for Humber River Hospital. This fall, she will hit the ground running as a Provincial candidate in Aurora-Oak Ridges-Richmond Hill for the Ontario Liberal Party. Now, and in between, the internationally-educated nurse is pressing the Ontario Government to speed up the process of recognizing foreign […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-7WM","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-10 16:32:57","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30552"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30552\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}