mad bunny

Hi to all.
I have a dilemma. The purpose of this draft is somewhat cathartic, insofar as it hopefully allows me to express my sentiments, and gain thoughts and insights from others who may be able to offer advice, or share experiences.
I'll probably look at this in the morning, and think, oh my god, stay away from the wine, but here goes.
We've been in Canada, approx. 7 months. Since arriving my husband has undergone heart investigations, and had a pacemaker inserted. He's 40 years of age. He had obtained employment roughly about two weeks before his heart problem became an issue. Fortunately great Canadian boss kept him on. He's a precision tool engineer. For my part, i'm a nurse. Specifically, i am a psychiatric nurse. Registered Mental Nurse-G-Grade/Nursing Sister. I qualified in "83, so experienced and no spring chicken! Unfortunately we used agents to assist in our emmigration, as basically we could afford to use them, and it was easier. We assumed, incorrectly that you get what you pay for, and the agents we used were not cheap. I was considered an 'asset' to my husband, as he was the main applicant. WRONG.
Since coming to Canada, I have learnt that my qualifications are not recognised. Canada has a General orientation, with a few weeks psychiatric practise, which following completion of training they can further develop their specialisms.
The U.K acknowledges that the complexities of mental health, and of learning disabilities warrents seperate training. That is to state, R.N. (General orientation), R.M.N. (psychiatric), R.M.N.H (Learning disabilities). All 3 year training courses. Canada only recognises the general orientation, and even then, have to sit test. As should be the case. Unfortunately for me, despite my U.K. status, and having a Diploma in Community Mental Health, I cannot work in Canada, because they do not recognise my qualifications. To work in Canada as a nurse, I would have to undertake further training (2 years, as I was informed), at a cost to me of approx. $36,000! To do a job, specifically in mental health that I am arguably, more qualified to do, just in virtue of specialist training. I only want to work in mental health. It further appears, that unlike Australia, and New Zealand there is no recipricol agreement with the U.K.
The best insult is that I cannot even work as a P.S.W/Care Assistant!!! Get that if you will. I have attempted to communicate with all of the relevant agencies in Canada, and what I have discovered is abject rudeness, ie. you will be ignored, if you pose a difficulty, ie non of the psychiatric nurses organisations, or the canadian mental health association will return your calls. I even had problems with the Ontario Nurses Association. It was a case of basically pay your $175, and we'll give you an answer, although strangely enough after a few posts on settlement.org. I
had a return call. Previously, always directed to an answermachine, 5 out of 6 calls not returned! No other word, than rude!
This is getting rather long, so i'll get to the point. It is perfectly obvious to me that I cannot work in Canada utilising my vocational skills. For a joke i applied to a pitza shop, and was turned down!!! Did I not have Canadian experience, or was ioverqualified! This i guess has spurned me on to this post.
I need to work. If i'd realised that 'nursing' did not include the specialisms, I would not have come to Canada. For me working is a way of life, a contribution to the social order of things, and most importantly, one's own self of worth and self esteem. To be told that you can't even work as a care assistant for god's sake is taking the ****. It means that 3 years specialist training within mental health, a 1 year diploma course, and 20 years of hands on experience, is not worth 3-4 months of a P.S.W. course, and of course Canadian experience!!!
My dilemma. We have a lovely home, and i have land and space. I have canadian friends, whom i adore, although i did meet them on the internet prior to our arrival. My husbands health.
I could get a job at tim hortons, (perhaps), but i could earn a lot more money doing agency at home in the U.K. This means however that i have to leave husband and home in canada. Or should we relocate to Australia or New Zealand, where at least i can work. What i cannot afford to happen is for my U.K. registration to lapse. Just in case i need to be the main bread winner, if my husband can't work
I'm a 43 year old qualified professional, and i'm not sorry if i believe that i'm worth a lot more than the 'Canadian Experience'.
We have space in Canada. I have the animals that i've always yearned for, but it all means nothing if i cannot work in a work related field in canada, and interact with canadians and conversations.
Most importantly, I have my husbands health to consider. I need to be in a position whereby i can earn money to support him, if he cannot.
I'm sure i have not covered totally our experiences, like after 3 months , don't mess around, thinking there's loads of time! Get your health card. Yes we passed our medicals!!!!
I think i ran away at the mouth, and i'm sure i hav'nt said what i wanted to. Still that's life, we mess up sometimes!
Show me the intellect, and i'll show you the fool!
We all need people.
Live. Love and Learn,
Appreciate somebodys help today.
Mad Bunny.

Rich_007

Sorry to hear your predicament, and also that you went through the process, landed and bought property etc, must have been even more stressful. I have to say you were very badly advised and would ask what the legal implications are - this is a serious avenue to consider for a very serious mistake made by your advisors. To me, they sound as though they don't even have the most basic understanding of how the process works for professionals emigrating who need verification of their credentials and experience.

Re. working/applying to work over there, though it's easy to say, don't be put off at the first few attempts. I left my 16 year industry career and it has taken 2 years to get anything like similar challenges, rewards and status in a totally different field - and you would not believe the periods of self-doubt, absolute dross employers/bosses and utter crap I had to endure at times in the past 2 years! But in the long term it has come good. As I am not in a professional field, I would hope to keep the same attitude on landing in Canada.

You may want to view it as a career break, maybe free up some time to look after your other half, if you decide to go ahead with the studying ? Treat it as a new lease of life. Yes, it would be a difficult one to pull off, but think of the longer term rewards, and 2 years does pass quickly. If you look around you and love what you see and could be happy, I personally wouldn't throw that away. It's hard to turn the other cheek and not feel bitter at the situation, but you do have options, and 'heading for home' may seem like the best immediate/short term solution, but might not be the best for the longer term.

Understanding your situation, as we are in similar status though still in UK PR file pending, so well, here goes:

My wife is a RGN, OR, 14 years experience etc, worked at 4 UK hospitals, now an F-grade. Applied to Alberta to be assessed for registration, application declined, no real help or advice offered. OK, their loss, part #1. Applied to BC, assessment pending.

Even as a 'normal' RGN in Canada, she'll need psychiatric and obs training - theory and practical. Now, she has worked in obs in OR environment for 12 months as well, but I digress.

Alberta gave her no options than to study in Canada at great expense to cover off the areas she was not originally trained - in original training and subsequent conversion to RGN training. BC allows extra study in UK if under approved format or distance learning package to help convert foreign nurses.

UK has in the past, and is now once again, training nurses as RGN's to standards which will never match those in Canada, even with UK nursing degrees (yes, true). So the opportunity to emigrate using those qualifications will be further restricted.

Our PR was AOR's in Feb 04, so we have plenty of time to complete the training ,secure registration, obtain interim permit, apply for employment, submit any offer to CIC to add to application file etc. We have studied the timelines involved in the emigration application and the requirements to secure registration for nursing - hopefully we did enough research on all this.

Even knowing full well the entire process, and the amount of time needed and all the obstacles involved, we felt we had the time on our hands to 'hedge our bets' so we submitted the PR - well at the end of the day only the cost of £500 PR application, one 2 week holiday and time, emotional energy and time taken up investigating Canada etc is at stake.

Anyway, cutting to the chase, our attitude is that we'll do things as best we can, in the most suitable order for us. We won't pay vast sums to complete extra training, and if everything ties in timewise it should all work out. We didn't use an advisor and thus far, no regrets other than minor hassles.

BUT - if anything gets in the way or causes grief and aggravation above and beyond the 'acceptable level' (and we are mentally prepared for whatever gets thrown at us) , in no way are we prepared to throw 14 years experience, good education, wide range of experience all down the pan because of idiotic beaurocracy (which is all it is at the end of the day).

So, if the authorities help us to work it out for both parties at reasonable cost and effort, then the natural conclusion will work out, if not, so be it.

Yes, we really want 'it' badly, but there is a limit at which questions have to be asked of ourselves.

There is one thing the authorities could do at CIC - any medical staff should need to secure their registration assessment for their particular field, to help them understand what they need to do extra to work in their field or to prove they can work in Canada. And the medical associations should move quicker than the 8-months that BC claim it can take to assess a file. After all, CIC wants immigrants that can contribute and settle. How in the hell anyone who secured immigration but then can't work would settle quickly I will never know !!!

Best of luck in all this.

Rich.

seamonsta

Goodness me, I feel very sorry for you. For what it's worth, this seems to happen a great deal from reading other people's experiences. Canada simply don't seem to recognise any British qualifications other than simple straight forward degrees. Seems ludicrous to me.
Engineers, doctors etc. all seem to be in the same boat. Is there any way you can hold your lawyer accountable? They clearly should have told you about this and might therefore be negligent.

stepnek

Rich, just to be clear on that do you mean that the Canadian standards are higher in nursing?


Stephen

Rich_007

Basic nurse training back in mid 80's didn't include full quota of psychiatric and obstetrics training (theory and practical) as per Canadian current requirements. After that, all nurse training included these areas.

Now it has returned to that format. Which means, if a nurse is recently qualified they will not automatically be able to register to work in Canada, even if completed a degree/diploma, because of lack of psych/obs training.

Basically, it depends when you trained/qualified, where and what was included in the course, and which training establishment you came from in UK.

Technically, I'm not saying they are 'better trained' but Canadian RN's are now/were trained in wider areas of general nursing than here in the UK.

>>> e.g. OR nurse in UK with 14 years experience, 4 years study, F grade, worked in 4 hospitals in UK needs additional psychiatric training to register and practice in Canada, after completing these areas of nurse training in basic training (practical and theory). Has no intention of applying/working in any area of nursing apart from OR, but still needs that extra training. That's just how it is.

Ontario will soon require degree qualified nurses, so anyone with UK degree but without psych/obs training requirements would still fall short of requriements in Canada.

Rich.

mad bunny

Hi,
Thanks for the replys.
Agents only act as a resource to get your P.R. status. They do not claim that you will get a job. My husband was also the main applicant, although there was references as to nurses, and a projected need. I was unfortunately unaware of the critera for canadian regulation. I was wrong to assume that people who are paid to do a job, will do it properly.
The ability to work, in a job that I love, and am very good at, is a big deal to me. The thing that really sticks in my throat, is to be informed you can't even work as a care assistant, unless you undertake training, when your a G grade nursing sister, and all the responsibilities that role entails. That is a major **** take. Also the fact that i'm not qualified to 'hand toss' a pitza. Really!
I also feel very apprehensive, in a cultural environment that so degrades established qualifications. It's makes me very anxious, to be made to feel unemployable. Never felt that way, since I was 18. It's a case of if I had known then, what I know now, would'nt have given Canada a second thought. Still lessons to be learnt in life, not matter how old you get, I guess. There's a lot to be said for direct experience as well. The realty of being here, and having major difficulties so soon.
One thing is for sure (see fitting in already), I would not have liked to come here with no financial stability. That I owe to the U.K.
Difficulties are further compounded, as even if i went on to undertake the 2 years training, I was informed i'd possibly require, this is likely to increase due to degree implementation. I was also informed that all R.N. courses were frozen due to this implementation in 2004. Beats me.
Rich, I hope all goes well for you.
Still undecided what on earth to do. What I do now realise is that I cannot afford to allow my U.K. registration to lapse. It's security, which I do not have here in Canada. So I guess i'm in the ridiculous scenario, of having to work at 'home' for periods of time, to both keep my hand in, so to speak, and to earn money.
I am not being down on Canada, but I do not think it is the land of milk and honey either. Horses for courses I guess.
On a positive note, I have met in Canada, friends, whom I would consider to be more important to me, than lifelong friends in the U.K. and have been a positive inspiration to me.
Anyway good luck to anybody and everybody who lives in or comes to Canada. It is however not Utopia.
In my opinion of course.