Student nursing conference in Halifax aims to help make health care more inclusive

A national student nursing conference in Halifax this week is aiming to help future nurses make their care and their workplaces more inclusive and equitable.

To the president of the Canadian Nursing Students' Association, this is an opportunity for nursing students to start developing their skills and their ability to advocate for themselves and their patients.

"Nurses are advocates, at the base of everything, and that has to start at the nursing student level," said Tiffany McEwen, who is also a registered nurse.

Every patient deserves equal and safe care, McEwen said.

"Social justice issues and inclusivity and equity have really come to the forefront in nursing issues in the last … five to 10 years especially."

The annual conference has been running since Wednesday and wraps up Saturday. Students have had the opportunity to network, attend workshops and hear from speakers.

The event has drawn about 200 students from across Canada to Halifax. Tosisiye Jegede is one of them. 

The Lethbridge, Alta., nursing student likes that the conference is focusing on inclusivity, pointing to systemic racism and discrimination in the health-care system toward Indigenous people and other groups.

Jegede said she's had experience with a patient who did not trust the health-care system.

"I think us as students … trying to make that change just helps stop the progression of [non-inclusivity] in people," Jegede said.

Topics covered at the conference include L'nu nursing, gender and sexuality, and access to health care for migrant workers.

"A lot of these things are things that you aren't necessarily going to get in your education at school," said April Mitchell, a Dalhousie University nursing student and the conference co-ordinator.

Mitchell added that it was a focus to try to offer programming that nursing students couldn't get anywhere else.

This is also the first year the conference is holding meetings specifically for different groups of students from diverse populations, Mitchell said.

She hopes participants will take what they learn back to their respective schools and eventually create change in the field.

"We're trying to change the face … of nursing and we're trying to make it more inclusive for everybody."