Lucy Reyes, President of Philippine Canadian Nurses Association and Global FWN100™ 2021 Awardee, has recently been recognized in an article published by CBC News for founding an organization that pushes for an easier process for International Educated Nurses (IENs) to have their credentials acknowledged in Canada.
Reyes identifies the systemic difficulty of becoming a nurse in Canada when one has been trained abroad. The process, as she says in the interview with CBC News, takes an average of four years for IENs to get accredited in Canada. This is apart from a demanding list of requirements that IENs must accomplish within a time period.
As she says, “The credentialing of internationally educated nurses needs a post-implementation review very badly in order to transform the process and make it more realistic to actually help with our manpower crunch across the country.”
Photo Credit: Philippine Canadian Nurses Association
The system has not changed since Reyes completed her nursing degree 46 years ago. She founded the Philippine Canadian Nurses Association, which has been actively calling out this systemic problem—and reaching out to help IENs experience fair labor opportunities in Canada.
"What I'm pushing for is … an opportunity for the provincial regulatory bodies to actually meet and develop common standards because we have the same recipients of care,” Reyes highlights.
Lucy has contributed more than four decades of progressive and diverse experience in acute and ambulatory settings as a frontline clinical manager, health informatics specialist, and as project management leader to several organizational initiatives. The Foundation for the Filipina Women’s Network conferred Reyes the Most Influential Filipina Woman in the World Award (Global FWN100™) Innovators & Thought Leaders category, at the Global Filipina Leadership Summit in San Francisco in 2021