{"id":290840,"date":"2025-11-18T10:52:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/290840\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T10:52:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T10:52:09","slug":"what-would-it-take-for-some-nurses-to-return-to-n-l-s-health-care-system-one-says-respect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/290840\/","title":{"rendered":"What would it take for some nurses to return to N.L.’s health-care system? One says respect"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 5 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Stacey Button, a licenced practical nurse (LPN) who left her job in rural Newfoundland more than two years ago, says nurses in the province want three things: respect, better compensation and more flexibility.<\/p>\n

Without those, she said, nurses like herself will keep leaving the province \u2014 and in some cases, the profession altogether \u2014 to meet their needs elsewhere.<\/p>\n

Button left her job as an LPN at Green Bay Health Centre in Springdale after a patient assaulted her in 2022, she said, adding she didn\u2019t receive much support from her managers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat person stayed in the hospital for many, many weeks after that had happened,\u201d Button told CBC News, referring to the patient. \u201cI had to leave. I couldn’t stay at a workplace that would allow that to happen to me and then not help me after it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Button changed tack when a travel nurse came into the hospital and “just made an offer I couldn’t refuse, really,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Travel nursing in Nunavut<\/p>\n

Button currently lives in Heart’s Delight with her husband, but she works as a travel nurse for the Government of Nunavut, in a clinic located in Coral Harbour where working conditions are much better for health-care professionals, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf someone comes into the health-care centre and they are rude to the staff or treat the staff in an unkind way, management has no issues stepping up and stepping in,\u201d Button said.<\/p>\n

\"NothernButton works as a travel nurse for a clinic in Coral Harbour, Nunavut. (Submitted by Stacey Button)<\/p>\n

In Newfoundland and Labrador, she said, it’s often on the nurse to calm irate patients or their family members down.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat really shouldn\u2019t be,\u201d Button said.<\/p>\n

She said she also enjoys her scope of practice in Nunavut, and when she is back in Heart\u2019s Delight she can be fully present in her home life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t imagine there would be anything that would bring me back here to work \u2026 with the way things are,\u201d Button said. \u201cI can’t imagine that I would ever want to give this up.\u201d<\/p>\n

‘I wanted to come back’<\/p>\n

Button\u2019s flexibility as a travel nurse is what Angie Regular, a former LPN living in Springdale, wants.<\/p>\n

In 2023, Regular said she asked for a leave of absence from the Green Bay Health Centre because she couldn\u2019t get child care for her young daughter.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s now four. I had asked for a leave of absence for up to a year until she was old enough to get into a daycare,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Have a story to share? Fill out the form below:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Regular said the health authority denied her request, so, like Button, she initially took up travel nursing so she could work when her parents could watch her daughter.<\/p>\n

She’s since moved on to a different industry, but wants to return to the hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely love nursing. I love working with other people. I love helping. Every part of nursing, I love it. I love the challenge. I love going into my shift, and sometimes you just don’t know what’s going to come through those doors,\u201d Regular said.<\/p>\n

\"EntranceBoth Stacey Button and Angie Regular worked as LPNs at Green Bay Health Centre in Springdale. (Colleen Connors\/CBC)<\/p>\n

Regular wants to work casually, but said she’s having trouble getting shifts at the hospital in Springdale.<\/p>\n

In an email, NLHS spokesperson Mikaela Etchegary said “LPNs hired as employees through N.L. Health Services have the flexibility to work in various arrangements including temporary call-in, part-time, and full-time based on employment availability.”<\/p>\n

WATCH | \u2018I wanted to come back a year after once my little one got in daycare\u2019:\"\"<\/p>\n

This travel nurse wants to work in the N.L. system \u2014 but says there are obstacles<\/p>\n

Stacey Button said she wants to work in central Newfoundland, and is willing to work as a casual nurse within Newfoundland and Labrador Health Services. But as the CBC\u2019s Jenna Head reports, Button said there are other issues that need to be addressed, too. <\/p>\n

But Regular said that would require being on call 24\/7, which doesn’t work for her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was here all summer in Springdale, willing to work and wanting to work, and I felt like I was being denied,\u201d Regular said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt really hurts. I spent 10 years here in Springdale and I wanted to come back after a year, once my little one got in daycare.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regular said recruiters are currently offering her travel nursing positions in western Newfoundland. She said if she could work casually in Springdale, she\u2019d return to nursing immediately.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a great career. It’s very, very rewarding. I loved everything about it, and I hope one day I can go back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Download our free CBC News app<\/a> to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here<\/a>. Click here to visit our landing page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 5 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-290840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}