Ontario Bolstering Nursing Workforce in Emergency Departments

Our government is continuing to build a stronger, more resilient health care workforce by investing $10 million to help more than 1,000 nurses upskill their training to provide emergency department care.

This will help bolster, stabilize and maintain the nursing workforce in emergency departments across the province, especially in rural and remote hospitals, to connect more people to critical care close to home.

Since its launch last year, over 400 nurses from 72 rural and remote hospitals received this upskill training.

Today’s investment enhances the program this year to allow more than 1,000 nurses working in 163 small, rural and remote emergency departments across the province to access four crucial training and education programs.

Since 2018, our government has added a record-breaking number of health care professionals to the workforce, including 80,000 new nurses and over new 24,000 PSWs, with another 30,000 nurses currently studying at Ontario colleges and universities.

Today’s exciting announcement is part of our government’s $743 million investment over three years, as part of our 2024 Budget, to continue to address immediate health care staffing needs and grow our healthcare workforce, including through upskilling, to ensure high quality health care delivery across the province for years to come.

Through Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, the Ontario government continues to take bold and decisive action to support the province’s highly-skilled workforce and ensure people and their families have access to high-quality care where and when they need it, closer to home.