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Why Thousands of Nurses Are Walking Out Across North America? (And Who’s Replacing Them)

The Gritty Nurse

Release Date: 07/30/2026

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The Gritty Nurse

In this new episode on The Gritty Nurse Podcast with Amie Archibald-Varley, we examine the case of Lindsay Clancy through the lens of postpartum psychosis and the catastrophic gaps in mental health care that allowed it to go unrecognized and untreated. I start with the question that should be asked before every postpartum antidepressant prescription: has this patient been screened for bipolar disorder? It's now considered the gold standard of care — and it only became standard practice because of this case. From there, we talk about what early screening should look like more broadly, what...

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The Gritty Nurse

Frontline pressures have reached a boiling point. In this swapcast episode, nurses Erica and Amie tackle the wave of nursing strikes across Massachusetts (MNA) and British Columbia (BCNU), exploring what these recent labor actions reveal about the true state of healthcare. Together, they dive into the harsh realities nurses are standing up against—from unsafe staffing ratios and lack of workplace respect to burnout and corporate greed. Erica and Amie also address the elephant in the room: "scab nurses." They break down the ethical, emotional, and financial strain traveling replacement...

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The Gritty Nurse

Content note: this episode discusses workplace violence, suicidal ideation and psychological harm in a clinical/workplace setting. This week, almost seven years to the day since I walked out of a role where I once hid under my desk to escape a leader who ran her unit on fear, that same leader was walked out of hers. This isn't a celebration episode. I don't take pleasure in anyone losing their income or their identity. But I can't stay quiet about what it means that it took seven years — seven years of turnover, burnout, and silence — for accountability to catch up. In this solo episode, I...

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In this urgent episode, host Amie Archibald-Varley sits down with Dr. Michelle Acorn, CEO of the Nurse Practitioners' Association of Ontario (NPAO), to rip the band-aid off a system that refuses to evolve. Dr. Acorn pulls no punches: Nurse Practitioners are trained, capable, and ready — and they're being held back by outdated policy, inadequate funding, and a government content to watch the primary care crisis deepen rather than act. What you'll hear in this episode: The full scope of what Ontario's inaction actually means for patients on the ground Why NPs remain one of the most...

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More Episodes

Frontline pressures have reached a boiling point. In this swapcast episode, nurses Erica and Amie tackle the wave of nursing strikes across Massachusetts (MNA) and British Columbia (BCNU), exploring what these recent labor actions reveal about the true state of healthcare.

Together, they dive into the harsh realities nurses are standing up against—from unsafe staffing ratios and lack of workplace respect to burnout and corporate greed. Erica and Amie also address the elephant in the room: "scab nurses." They break down the ethical, emotional, and financial strain traveling replacement nurses place on striking staff, how hospital systems use high-paid temporary labor to undercut union power, and the complex reality of nursing ethics vs. corporate greed.

More importantly, they share actionable insights on how nurses can build genuine solidarity, mobilize for patient safety, and use their collective voice to drive real structural change. Whether you're on the floor or on the picket line, this is a conversation about standing tall for the profession.

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