By Ruby Pratka
Local Journalism Initiative
Nearly 95 per cent of candidate nurses who took their exams on Sept. 23 passed, the Ordre des infirmiers et infirmières du Québec (OIIQ), the professional order which regulates nursing in the province, announced late last week. The pass rate was 98.1 per cent for graduates of Quebec nursing programs and 83.8 per cent for those who had studied outside Canada. The pass rate for the CEGEP Champlain-Lennoxville nursing program was 100 per cent.
“Clinical service centres can now welcome 2,760 new nurses, to the greatest benefit of the Quebec population,” the OIIQ said in a statement.
In January 2023, the province’s commissioner of admission to professions, André Gariépy, launched an investigation into the exam, concerned about its quality and reliability. Gariépy’s report found the exam was flawed to the point that its “validity was questionable.” In November of that year, one in every three candidates failed. Although candidates get as many as three attempts to pass the exam, the OIIQ later decided that attempts between September 2022 and March 2024 would not count, and announced plans to overhaul the exam. The order initially announced plans to administer a Quebec version of the US-based NCLEX-RN exam before putting those plans on an “indefinite pause” amid translation and interoperability concerns.
“The ongoing work to review the admission examination process, resulting from the recommendations of the latest report of the Commissioner for Admission to Professions, is to the satisfaction of the Office des professions du Québec. The OIIQ continues to work with its collaborators to support candidates for the practice of the nursing profession in the preparation and success of their path,” the order said Nov. 8.
“These emerging nurses are in a position to play a real pivotal role in health in all regions of Quebec. I welcome them to the profession and wish them great success! Furthermore, I would like to thank the OIIQ work teams and all the partners involved in this process,” said OIIQ president Luc Mathieu in a press release.
Both the OIIQ and the Fédération interprofessionnelle de la santé du Québec (FIQ), the province’s largest nursing union, said they would not comment further on the exam situation.