REGINA — Long after hospital lights dim and clinic doors close, nurses across Saskatchewan continue to carry responsibility that extends far beyond the walls of traditional health care settings. They guide people through medical emergencies, support families receiving life-altering diagnoses, and walk alongside individuals living with addiction, disability, mental illness, grief, and chronic conditions, all while working inside a system facing growing demand and increasing complexity.
During National Nursing Week in Canada and International Nurses Day, that reality is being recognized across the country, highlighting both the pressure nurses face and the essential role they play in sustaining health systems and communities.
At Creative Options Regina, Director of Health Mandy Boersch is part of a smaller, highly specialized branch of nursing that many people never encounter directly but that has a profound impact on those it serves. The organization supports individuals living with intellectual and developmental disabilities, many of whom also experience complex medical and mental health challenges that require ongoing, coordinated care across multiple settings.
Boersch said the work is shaped by unpredictability and constant adaptation, where every day brings different needs depending on the people being supported and the level of care required at any given time.
“It really depends on what is going on with the people that we support,” Boersch explained. “We support people in the community who have intellectual and developmental disabilities and often other health and mental health diagnoses as well, so the needs can change significantly from day to day.”
Her team includes registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, a licensed practical nurse, and a dietician, all working together with support teams across Regina who provide care in homes where one to four individuals may live together. The nursing role in that environment extends well beyond clinical duties and often involves training caregivers, supporting families, attending medical appointments, and ensuring that care plans are understood and followed in everyday settings.
Boersch said much of the work happens outside traditional clinical environments, which allows for more consistent, relationship-based care, but also requires significant coordination and trust-building.
“Anything that we can do outside of a hospital or clinic setting we try to do in the home or here at the office,” she said. “That can include going to appointments, supporting families, or training teams on medications and treatments, depending on what is needed at the time.”
Her path into nursing was shaped by lived experience after growing up alongside her sister, who lived with significant disabilities and complex health needs. That early exposure revealed both the strengths and gaps within the health-care system and ultimately guided her into a profession where she could help address those gaps for others.
“I grew up in this sector because my sister had a disability and complex health needs,” Boersch stated. “There were people who were very supportive, but there were also times when there were gaps in care and people simply did not know how to respond because disability health was not well understood.”
That lack of understanding remains one of the biggest challenges in the field today. Boersch said disability-focused nursing often receives limited attention in formal health-care education, even though individuals with disabilities frequently require care that differs significantly from standard medical approaches.
She also pointed to accessibility barriers that continue to exist in health-care settings, including equipment limitations and physical spaces that are not always designed to accommodate patients with mobility challenges, as well as time constraints that make thorough assessments more difficult.
“There are still basic accessibility issues in some settings,” she said. “We have had situations where we could not safely transfer someone onto a diagnostic table, which creates real barriers to care.”
Despite those challenges, Boersch said recent progress has come through stronger collaboration between her team and medical specialists across the city, with a growing emphasis on preparing for appointments in advance so that patient needs are clearly understood before they arrive.
That shift toward collaboration reflects what she described as a more intentional, relationship-based model of care that prioritizes communication, preparation, and continuity.
“We work with specialists ahead of time to gather information and build care plans so that when people arrive for appointments, everyone already understands what is needed,” Boersch expressed. “It helps make the time with physicians more effective and reduces stress for the people we support.”
According to the Canadian Nurses Association, nurses remain the largest group of health-care professionals in Canada and consistently rank among the most trusted professions in the country, even as the system continues to face rising pressures linked to staffing shortages, burnout, and increasingly complex patient needs.
This year’s International Nurses Day theme, “Our Nurses. Our Future. Caring for nurses strengthens economies,” highlights the importance of supporting nurses not only as caregivers but as essential contributors to the stability and sustainability of health systems worldwide.
For Boersch, the emotional reality of nursing remains central to why she continues in the field after more than a decade of work at Creative Options Regina, where she has watched the health team grow from a single nurse into a multidisciplinary group providing increasingly complex care.
“It is very hard work, but it is also incredibly rewarding,” she said. “Being able to support someone when they are at their lowest point and then see them move toward stability and a better quality of life is what keeps people in this field.”
She said the impact of nursing is not always measured in dramatic moments but often in quiet, steady progress built over time through trust and consistency.
For her, the meaning of the profession ultimately comes back to human connection and dignity, especially for people who are often overlooked by traditional systems of care.
“It always comes back to relationships,” Boersch explained. “When people feel safe, respected, and understood, everything about their care changes, and that is what good nursing is really about.”
