Alberta nurses leaving profession as staffing contributes to longer ER waits: report

For every 100 new nursing school graduates hitting Alberta’s health care workforce, 36 nurses under age 35 are leaving the field, choosing not to renew their licences.

Piled on top of physician shortages, bed shortages and the respiratory season, the figures are contributing to snowballing problematic emergency room waits and ward closures across the province.

Numbers cited in a new report from MEI, a Canadian public policy think-tank, show Alberta’s rate of nursing departures is slightly higher than the national attrition rate of 34 nurses under 35 leaving per 100 new nurses.

Across Canada, there were 27,139 nursing positions open in 2025. That’s roughly three times as many openings as there were in 2016.

Other concerning stats from the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions 2026 survey: more than four in 10 worked involuntary overtime in the past six months.

Almost all — nine out of 10 nurses countrywide — experienced some form of violence or abuse at work in the past year.

The survey concluded half show signs of burnout.

At Calgary’s Foothills hospital, overnight shifts in the emergency department can run a quart low, with a 31-nurse baseline short by eight to nine nurses, said Dr. Paul Parks, president of the emergency medicine section of the Alberta Medical Association.

“Inconsistent emergency department nurse staffing is making it next to impossible to implement any of the other physician-related mitigating strategies,” Parks said.

That limits ER capacity, with Calgary emergency departments running 11-12 hour waits in October, and more than half of emergency-department beds blocked by admitted patients awaiting in-patient placement.

“The high volumes (reflect) really sick people, but they’re so grossly understaffed with nurses. When that happens, it’s very unsafe to try to take care of really overstretched emerge department with really sick patients.

“That means they have to close some areas. It just adds to the overcrowding. The system’s under immense, crazy strain, and we’ve been warning (the province) again and again and again,” Parks said.

The departure rate puts undue pressure on our strained system, said Annjanette Ridsdale-Weddell, CEO for the Alberta Association of Nurses, a professional association representing all regulated nursing designations in Alberta.

“The problem is that the system is strained. We’re not retaining the experienced nurses that we have, and we need to have experienced nurses to help support the new grads coming into the system,” she said.

“Our working conditions have deteriorated significantly, and the majority of times we’re working in environments that are not psychologically safe for us.”

Complex and ever-changing, competency in the nursing world is a moving target, so there are ongoing requirements for education past the diploma. On-the-job development is also a continuous process, but a strained system can limit those opportunities, Ridsdale-Weddell said.

High on the list of safe working conditions is the freedom to report medication or medical errors without fear of repercussions or discipline, she said.

“In any industry, when there is when the environment is not psychologically safe, lives are lost,” Ridsdale-Weddell said, citing big tragedies in other industries stemming from psychologically unsafe working environments — including the 1985 shuttle launch explosion.

Ridsdale-Weddell said AAN has filed a proposal with the Alberta government to support new grads early in their career, and another program proposal to support leaders at the point of care on creating psychologically safe working environments.

British Columbia remains the best performer in the country for nurse retention, with young nurse turnover declining 53 per cent since 2014.

Among young nurses in B.C., for every 100 entering the health-care workforce, about 26 are leaving it.

Gabriel Giguere, a senior policy analyst for MEI, suggests the province look to B.C. and New Brunswick as examples for a specific perk that seems to be working, as simple shift-swapping pools in those provinces let nurses trade shifts without administrative approval.

“The government establishes a path that makes it easier for flexibility, to make sure that you can change schedules with another nurse. In B.C., we saw the ratio of outflow has dramatically reduced. Part of it is related to international new nurses that bring up the inflow, but in the meantime, the added flexibility definitely helped,” he said.

Other retention strategies he cites include giving nurses greater freedom to work for private clinics, travel-nurse agencies or telehealth companies, which enables them to better manage their schedules and maintain a healthier work-life balance.

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