Cates Bayabay is a Filipino-Canadian nurse who is living and serving the Inuit Territory of Nunavut. Up there is where she found a nursing practice that is always at the frontier of change: climate change, geopolitical activities, and technological advancements. And it’s where her nursing identity as a remote, northern nurse strengthened.
Her active engagement as board executives in the Canadian College of Health Leaders Midnight Sun Chapter, the Canadian Association for Rural and Remote Nurses, and the Northwest Territories and Nunavut Association of Nurses positions her as a strong advocate for advancing the distinctly expanded nursing scope of practice in rural and remote communities that enables access to health care possible in sparsely populated areas.
This aligns greatly with the Canadian Nurses Association’s strategic priorities for a healthier Canada and to “unleash the true value of the nursing workforce to meet population health needs”.
Agency and accountability are central to her work and way of life as well as the Filipino way of Kapwa (shared identity), Bayanihan (community spirit), and Kabutihang-Loob (kindness). These values and virtues form the constellation pointing to her North Star.