Kingston Health Sciences Centre (KHSC) is hoping to help address staffing shortages by offering incentives to new hires.
The new incentives also encourage current staff members to help connect KHSC with qualified health care professionals, with referral bonuses available to current employees.
In a news release, KHSC says it will begin offering incentives for select hospital positions from January 1st until March 31, aiming to address key areas of need in the organization with highly-specialized healthcare workers.
In Thursday’s release, KHSC Executive Vice President of Patient Care and Chief Nursing Officer Jason Hann says despite hiring efforts throughout this year, Kingston’s hospital network continues to suffer from staffing shortages requiring further efforts to be made.
“Even though we have hired more than 1000 staff already this year, like other hospitals across the country, we continue to wrestle with severe staffing shortages,” said Hann.
“This new incentive program is our latest effort to attract healthcare workers to KHSC to ensure we can continue to offer highly specialized care to patients from across Southeastern Ontario.”
The incentive program offers new hires in designated areas of need or difficult to recruit positions a one time $10,000 sign-on bonus, with half that amount made available for part-time positions.
In addition to that bonus, relocation assistance of up to $15,000 is available to candidates who currently live 200 kilometres or more from Kingston, and current staffers can receive a $3000 bonus for helping KHSC to fill Registered Nurse (RN), Registered Practical Nurse (RPN) and Medical Laboratory Technologist positions.
The hospital network hopes these incentives will help to build a stronger and more dependable health network.
“We have an incredible team at KHSC and we are working hard to continue building a strong workforce,” says Hann.
“We are encouraging everyone, including our staff, to help promote and participate in these incentive programs so that we can fill these key positions within our organization.”
All across Ontario healthcare networks are experiencing a shortage of workers, with nurses in particular taking issue with the wage suppressing Bill 124 – recently found unconstitutional in an Ontario court.
The Ontario Nurses Association estimates that Ontario would need to add 24,000 RNs immediately to meet the national standard.
The incentives are available from January 1 until March 31.
