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A new employee group at Horizon Health Network is working to support the growing cohort of internationally-trained staff with the company. <\/p>\n
Abidemi Balogun, a registered nurse in Saint John who is originally from Nigeria, said the International Educated Employee Resource Group, which was started earlier this year, gives internationally-trained staff a sense of belonging and a safe space to share ideas.<\/p>\n
\u201cMainly what this group is all about is just to give them \u2026 support,\u201d said Balogun.<\/p>\n
\u201cSupport by mentorship, leadership, giving them that empowerment.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marwa Elnady, a Saint John registered nurse originally from Egypt, said she wished a program like this one was available when she first moved to New Brunswick.<\/p>\n
LISTEN | Marwa Elnady and Abidemi Balogun hope efforts help newcomers settle and stay:<\/p>\n
Information Morning – Saint John15:30New peer support program for international health care workers<\/p>\n
Host Emily Brass speaks with some internationally born health-care workers who are trying to give other newcomers in their field a leg up, with social support and cultural guidance. Marwa Elnady and Abidemi Balogun hope their efforts will help newcomers settle in and stay.<\/p>\n
She said when she moved to Saint John, she had to find settlement agencies on her own, which she said can be demoralizing while living and working in a new environment.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the phases is the frustration phase when sometimes we lose hope with everything, see [the] struggles more than the opportunities,\u201d said Elnady.<\/p>\n
According to Horizon, there are 740 internationally-trained employees with the health authority, including 430 nursing staff and 30 salaried physicians.<\/p>\n
Balogun said it\u2019s not just moving to Canada that can lead to culture shock, moving within Canada can be shocking, too. <\/p>\n
Before moving to Saint John, Balogun lived in Ontario after moving from Nigeria, but he said moving from one province to another still had its adjustment period. <\/p>\n
\u201cI came [to] Saint John in 2019 when we [had few] Africans,\u201d said Balogun.<\/p>\n
\u201cI could imagine if I was coming directly from Africa.\u201d<\/p>\n
Elnady said it\u2019s important to make newcomers feel at home, not only for their mental and physical health, but also for the health of hospital patients.<\/p>\n
She said not feeling a sense of belonging can eventually lead employees to not putting their all into their work.<\/p>\n
It can also lead to staffing retention issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I’m not happy in Saint John, I won’t be staying,\u201d said Elnady.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Balogun said there are still some employees who \u201care not really aware of this program,” so the group needs to find ways to spread the word. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323648,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-342771","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\/342771","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=342771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}