Western Canada: B.C.’s plan to increase the number of nurses working in the province

In interviews last November as John Horgan was exiting his job as B.C. Premier, he paused to reflect on the biggest issues facing government – not just his, but governments right across the country.

Some of those issues, including the health-care crisis, are problems premiers can expect to chip away at, he cautioned in an interview with Globe columnist Gary Mason. But fixing them? Anything easy to fix would have been fixed by now, he noted.

Premier David Eby was having none of that caution on Monday as he made his government’s third announcement since last spring aimed at increasing the number of nurses working in the province.

He said his new plan for additional financial supports and a faster assessment process could bring as many as 2,000 applicants into the health-care work force within 90 days.

The announcement Monday commits B.C. to directly cover application and assessment fees for internationally educated nurses who want to work in the province, and to also provide financial help for nurses who wish to re-enter the work force. In addition, registration with the BC College of Nurses & Midwives, or BCCNM, will be faster.

“This announcement means that there are nurses right now – 2,000 nurses right now – that are in the approval pipeline that could be on the floor in hospitals within 90 days. It is a remarkable shift, and I don’t want that to be missed,” Mr. Eby said at the news conference.

He underlined it later: “I understand that there will be nurses, potentially on the ground within 90 days of this announcement thanks to these changes.”

But the trendline, and even Mr. Eby’s own health minister, would suggest such exuberance should be curbed.

Data provided to reporter Justine Hunter by the BC Nurses’ Union show there were 3,230 unfilled positions at the end of March, 2020, the month the pandemic was declared. By the end of September last year, that number had climbed to 5,325. The increase is not surprising: The pandemic prompted extreme burnout among health-care workers.

But the data also showed that the number of nursing vacancies in British Columbia last year alone, even after the first round of measures to mitigate the shortage was introduced, continued to rise.

Last April, the province offered $12-million in bursaries for foreign-trained nurses and launched a new assessment approach. But the nurses’ union’s data show that by the end of June last year, the number of unfilled nursing positions was 4,293. By the end of September, the figure had risen to 5,325.

Further changes were introduced last September. The province offered more funding to the professional associations in charge of accreditation to implement a streamlined approach to assessment and registration. That change was expected to reduce the waiting period for nurses looking to work in B.C., down from three years to between four and nine months.

In the background materials provided to reporters Monday, the government said more than 90 per cent of nursing applications received in 2022 by the BC College of Nurses & Midwives came after the April changes.

The measures announced last April have prompted 5,500 to express an interest in working in British Columbia, with 2,000 “actively working through the various stages of the registration and assessment process.”

Cynthia Johansen, registrar and chief executive officer of the BC College of Nurses & Midwives, told the news conference Monday the new changes will make registration even easier.

But Health Minister Adrian Dix wasn’t latching on to Mr. Eby’s pledge of 2,000 nurses in three months. He was asked how many new nurses will be working in B.C. within nine months as a result of the new measures.

“What we’ll do … is not talking about what we expect,” he said. “Rather we will report on what is happening in the system and you’ll get regular reports on that.”

This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief James Keller. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.