An increasing number of Nurses in Ontario in Ontario Say that they reach a point of rupture under the province’s tense health system.
Citing low wages, professional exhaustion and unsustainable professional responsibilities, nurses warn that without urgent action, the overloaded health system could decrease.
Aliya Hajee, a nurse practitioner and founder of NP Circle, an organization that supports nurses in Canada, said that current reality was not only frustration – this is a crisis.
“Nurses are working to fill these shortcomings in recent years, but we are doing much more,” she said. “We manage growing patients for patient care without the support we really need to support this.”
A national survey by NP Circle revealed that only one eight Ontario practitioner nurse was “very satisfied” with their work.
Almost one in five were “dissatisfied” or “very dissatisfied” and almost 78% stressed compensation as their main concern.
“The reason I created NP Circle and started this survey was because there was no space for nurses in connecting and feeling supported in a system that often feels isolating,” said Hajee. “And the data reflects directly that this is really worrying.”
National survey; The main challenges reported by Ontario practitioners, 2025.
NP circle
Claudia Mariano, a retired nurse with more than 25 years of experience at work, said resentment is common in trade.
“At the time when I started as a practical infirmarian many years ago, we used to plead more, but we no longer celebrate these increases in the scope of practice because the increase in responsibility and responsibility was not greeted by remuneration, support or even respect,” said Mariano, now director of members at NP Circle.
“There is this unwritten foundation that you are a nurse, you will just do what is requested by altruistic trends … We have come to the point where we are thrown … Continue to do more with exactly the same resources.”
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More than half of the Ontario practitioners interviewed said they were planning to leave the profession – or have expressed serious indications that they could.
“By examining answers written in the data, almost half of the respondents wrote a kind of commentary in free text saying that they would leave,” said Mariano.
She remembers reading an answer saying: “I can’t do that anymore … I’m going to leave in the next year or two because I can’t do that.”
1 report on nurses out of 3 under 3 undergoing professional exhaustion.
NP circle
In addition to wage concerns, nearly one in three practitioners in Ontario indicated that mental health and professional exhaustion were among their main professional challenges.
Alix Consorti, nurse in primary care practitioner with more than a decade of experience, said that the results of the survey were astounding.
“It was breathtaking to see the figures,” she said. “It’s very frightening. They are my colleagues and friends … and it is not a solo practitioner problem. It’s a system problem. “
According to an announcement by the Canadian Council of Nursing Regulators authorized last year, a new Canadian Pan frame should be implemented in 2026, which facilitates registration at work across the country.
The change would improve mobility and eliminate existing obstacles on the place where practitioner nurses can practice, but have triggered a whole new set of concerns about the retention of employment in Ontario.
“The nurses are … go to go to other provinces where the salary is better, and that will only increase with this new legislation,” said Consorti. “So we are here in a real human resources crisis.”
As a result, patients pay the price, said Erin Mignault, a practitioner nurse with more than 40 years of experience.
“It is an exhausting cycle. On the one hand, the nurses are trying to be intensified and filling the gaps where the shortages of family doctor cannot, and on the other hand, it makes them go out and wants to leave the field,” she said.
“While family physicians continue to leave, more patients are deposited in a pot of millions of people who do not currently have a primary care provider.”
Ontario is already looking for ways to link around 2.2 million residents to an ordinary primary care provider, which led to a lot on overcrowded emergency rooms or clinics without appointment.
The retention counts the most, say the defenders
In a declaration to Global News, a spokesperson for the Ontario Minister of Health said that the province continued to invest in the workforce of practitioners.
“We have added 150 new nurses training seats, removed unnecessary administrative tasks to save the 95,000 hours suppliers and extended the scope of nurses’ practice,” they said. “Our government will continue to be a solid partner of nurses.”
Despite this work, lawyers have said that the addition of seats will not make a significant difference if people do not want to stay in work.
Without serious reforms and better compensation, they fear that the province can soon face a new health challenge.
“We don’t just support the system,” said Hajee. “We help keep it together.”