N.B. Adds More Seats To Nurse Bridging Program

A bridging program which helps licensed practical nurses become registered nurses is expanding in New Brunswick.

UNB Fredericton will get $5.2 million over 10 years from the province to add 24 seats to its LPN-to-RN bridging program.

The new funding, announced last week, will double the capacity of the program at the university’s Fredericton campus to 48 seats.

“This will allow us to go a long way toward filling that gap of 130 nurses per year that we’re going to need over the next 10 years,” Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour Minister Trevor Holder said in an interview.

The bridging program for LPNs combines classroom learning and clinical experience. It is designed to recognize their experience and education while addressing the knowledge and training differences between LPNs and RNs.

Previous Funding Agreements Come Under Fire

The province has struggled to address the severe nursing shortage and has even come under fire for previous funding agreements.

The Progressive Conservatives, under Bernard Lord, signed agreements with UNB and the Universite de Moncton in 2005 to expand their nursing programs.

But the province’s auditor general found in 2019 that despite the government paying nearly $100 million to the universities over 14 years, the number of seats in the programs dropped.

The Higgs government later cut funding to the nursing programs and replaced it with the LPN-to-RN bridging program.

Holder said the province has now funded a total of 81 additional bridging program seats since unveiling its nursing resource strategy in July 2019.

Last year, the province announced 10-year funding agreements to support 32 seats at UNB Saint John and 25 seats at the Universite de Moncton. The total investment, including the new seats at UNB Fredericton, is $18 million over 10 years

“It’s important to note that the funding doesn’t flow to the universities until the first year of study is completed so that actually gets us the results that we need,” said Holder. “We’re not just funding without seats being filled.”

George MacLean, vice-president academic at UNB Fredericton, said the university’s nursing programs are essential to both the health and prosperity of our province and its people.

“This is a real opportunity to enhance our province’s health-care system and we are excited to be working in partnership with the Government of New Brunswick to find innovative solutions that work for all of us,” MacLean said in a news release.

‘All Hands On Deck’

Holder said the bridging program is just one part of a multi-faceted approach to address the nursing shortage in the province.

Talks continue with the province’s universities to see how they can help even more, he said. The province is also working to get internationally-trained nurses the bridging they need to get into the workplace.

“It’s not one thing that’s going to fix this nursing shortage,” said Holder. “It’s going to have to be all hands on deck, as I’ve said many times before.”

“It’s going to take the nurses association, the nurses union, the universities, our colleges, the Department of Health and the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Labour, and the regional health authorities to help work with us to hire these graduates and make job offers to them once they come out of university.”

Holder did not rule out expanding the bridging program even further when asked about what the next steps would be.

“All I can say, as I said a year and a half ago, stay tuned. There will be more news.”