With a provincial election just around the corner, the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario is hitting the road to hear from its members.
RNAO President Carol Timmings was in Windsor Monday night and says the goal was to have face-to-face time to discuss the challenges nurses are facing on a day to day basis.
Timmings says a unique issue she hears in Windsor-Essex is nurses heading south of the border for work.
"As the president of RNAO, that concerns me that our new graduates are leaving the province. I think we need to look at employability, let's look at having opportunities right here in Ontario where they're being educated. So, to me, that is a red flag and areas that we need to look at."
She says the replacement of registered nurses tops the list of concerns anywhere she goes.
"In Ontario, we have the lowest RN to patient population ratio in the country. That's not something for Ontario to be proud of and we're really wanting health professionals to be utilized to their fullest scope of practice so that we can make the best contributions to health outcomes that are possible."
Timmings adds, nurses in Windsor-Essex are a special breed.
"Windsor is a significant contributor to our provincial association. Very engaged nurses and there's a lot of innovative leadership happening in Windsor-Essex. I find nothing replaces coming out to hear about what they're doing as well as some of the challenges."
Windsor was the first stop of dozens planned for the coming months.
The RNAO is in Chatham Tuesday.