Eastern Ontario county considers $160,000 job offer for nurse practitioner after no applicants for posting

It’s becoming more and more difficult to find nurses to fill positions in Ontario.

Now an eastern Ontario town council is considering whether to offer someone $160,000 to work as a nurse practitioner in a long-term care home.

The John M. Parrott Centre, in the county of Lennox and Addington, which includes Napanee, posted the job opening in November.

Angela Malcolm, the director of long-term care for Lennox and Addington, says the posting initially offered a salary between $98,000 to $115,000 per year, plus benefits.

"There was zero applicants interested in our job posting," Malcolm explains.

At a council meeting Wednesday night, Lennox and Addington county council voted to consider topping that up by $50,000, to $160,000, also including benefits.

That would be out of its own budget, hoping to make the role more attractive.

"Filling the nurse practitioner role is very important to ensure that we can provide really effective and timely care for our residence," Malcolm says. "There's also not a lot of nurse practitioners across Ontario. So if they’re in a position, there’s just not a lot of draw to get them to come to our place. They’re already very likely working somewhere."

Malcom says the original salary is comparable to other nurse practitioner roles, and funding is coming from the Ministry of Long-Term Care to fill the centre’s first nurse practitioner role.

But, positions like these require long hours.

"The feedback I received from nurse practitioners was that it was too low of a wage and they were concerned with the volume of on-call that potentially would be required," Malcolm said.

Many places in Ontario have to get creative to attract health workers.

"We have a lot of no-shows, we have a lot of cancelled interviews for the front line positions so it’s very, very challenging," she explains.

The search for someone to fill the role will continue later this year once a decision has become official during budget discussions.