Warm welcome bridges borders

Nigerian nurses make themselves right at home in High Level

Story by Janine Poersch

HIGH LEVEL — Far from home, Nigerian nurses Wisdom Aderibigbe-Simeon and Chinyere Mbadinuju found solace, open arms and a career opportunity in an entirely foreign place.

Their move to High Level — a friendly town of 3,100 on the fabled Mackenzie Highway between Yellowknife and Edmonton — soon became less about adapting and more about thriving, thanks to the warm welcome and support of two savvy site leaders, their families and teams.

“It’s never just about the work or the workplace,” says Angie Mann, director in the North Zone, who oversees Clinical Operations in Area 1. She believes what people need to live well is “the holistic approach to life”, qualities that go beyond the words in a job description or the hours in a shift.

“We can have the best orientation, set them up with a million buddy shifts and educators, but if we don’t welcome them and make them part of the team and community, we won’t be successful,” adds Steven Rideout, Site Manager at Northwest Health Centre.

Bone-chilling weather aside, equally important factors to consider include housing, transportation, food and a feeling of social belonging.

In rural areas, some can be trickier to navigate than others. “The biggest thing is transportation,” says Rideout. In the absence of public transit, the leaders, their staff and family members have been taking turns driving the newly-arrived nurses where they need to go. Fortunately, housing came easier, with temporary AHS accommodation across the street from the centre.

Before the nurses arrived, the High Level team discussed strategies and put them in place to welcome the pair and cushion their landing as newcomers.

“We plan to do this with all of our international nurses,” says Mann, reflecting on the first Zoom call with Aderibigbe-Simeon and Mbadinuju. The intent was to get acquainted and ease nerves — on the surface anyway.

However, Mann had a more covert agenda — to learn their favourite colours, food likes and dislikes, even allergies — and no detail was too trivial. Using this intel, she put together welcome baskets for the nurses, a gesture made possible by the High Level Hospital Auxiliary and Northwest Health Foundation.

Rideout and his family personally greeted them at the airport, arranged transportation, helped them to navigate grocery trips and essential tasks like banking. Each step reflected their compassion and an altruistic desire to make sure the nurses felt welcome and valued in their new homes and workplace.

“It’s made me feel like this can be home because of the way they welcomed us,” Aderibigbe-Simeon recalls of her first few days in High Level and quality time spent with Mann and Rideout and his family. “They showed me so much kindness and welcoming spirit.

“I wanted a new space — a new environment,” she adds, reflecting on the weight of leaving her parents to pursue her career ambition and a healthcare system that could match it. She’s happy that “in rural nursing, I’m not fixed to one specialty or area. I get to experience different facets.” This breadth of exposure, she believes, will lay the groundwork to specialize in the future, if she wishes.

Like her friend, Mbadinuju is also on a similar quest to advance her nursing career. “I was working in a big hospital in Nigeria, but I wanted more.”

Mbadinuju, who also left her family back home, is pleasantly surprised by the absence of the culture shock she had anticipated. She gives credit to the kind things Rideout, Mann and their teams did to help her acclimatize to her new surroundings. “It made me have this kind of confidence that, although I’m away from home, this is my home.”

For other site leaders and teams looking to welcome newcomers, Rideout and Mann offer sage advice.

“It’s that overall connectedness, just being that support so they feel like they’re not on their own — that there’s assistance,” says Mann. The pair equally emphasize the importance of connecting early, having regular check-ins and creating safe spaces for nurses to talk, especially if they’re having challenges.

The biggest shock to the system, it seems, is the Canadian winter. For her part, Mbadinuju says she’s getting used to it — yet wasted no time in cranking the heat in her apartment up to a toasty 27 degrees until she warmed up.

Aderibigbe-Simeon gasps as she recalls stepping off the plane in High Level. “Steven warned us, but oh my goodness, it was freezing!”

Mbadinuju and Aderibigbe-Simeon are also joined by four international nurses who’ve arrived since November 2023, with another expected to arrive in April. Meanwhile, an hour east of High Level, in Fort Vermillion, Mann is currently overseeing the welcome of an additional seven international nurses.