Internationally educated nurses will be allowed to work in the Ontario health-care system as it grapples with staff illnesses during the Omicron wave of COVID-19.
Health Minister Christine Elliot says the internationally trained professionals will be deployed where extra help is needed, under the supervision of another regulated health-care provider.
More than 1200 hundred applicants have expressed interest in the programs, and participants will have the opportunity to become permanent staff.
Ontario Health CEO Matthew Anderson says an estimated 300 nurses will likely be able to start work as early as this week at some of the 50 hospitals identified as in need of workforce support.
Elliott says current trends indicate the Omicron wave of the pandemic will peak around the third or fourth week of January.
She says the peak for intensive care units is expected to come in the first week of February.
Elliot says patients with the Omicron variant appear to require slightly shorter hospital and intensive care stays compared with the Delta variant.