British Columbia has focused its attention on attracting doctors and nurses from the United States to move north in what the Minister of Health, Josie Osborne, is calling an “unprecedented” recruitment opportunity.
Osborne says that the province is changing its license rules for trained doctors in the US.
She said there will be a similar setback from the barriers facing trained nurses in the US. And that a marketing campaign will be presented in Washington, Oregon and California in the coming months.
“With uncertainty and chaos that occur south of our border, we have an unprecedented opportunity to attract qualified medical care workers interested in moving to Canada,” Osborne said in a statement.
She was more forceful in the comments to journalists on Tuesday.
“Whether because its federal government is withdrawing from the World Health Organization, reducing public services or attacking reproductive rights, health professionals in the United States have a good reason to be alarmed,” he told a press conference.
“This provides an opportunity for BC to send a clear message to doctors and nurses who work in the United States is now the time to come to British Columbia. We will welcome our beautiful province where together, we can strengthen the care of public health … and build healthy communities.”
She said the province would also promote opportunities in rural and remote communities that face the shortage of health workers.
Osborne rejected the concern that the campaign can risk aggravating US officials even more during a growing commercial war between Canada and the United States.
“It is a good time for people to consider moving to a place where they feel supported, where they feel welcome and where they know that they will have the type of colleagues by their side to support them in this work,” he said.
The province celebrates the success of the new payment model
The province says that the recruitment campaign will be based on the success of the recent changes made in its payment model for family doctors, put instead in February 2023. Since then, Osborne says that 1,0001 new family doctors have begun to practice in BC, with a “record number” of residents, 250,000, attached to a primary care supplier at 2024.
More than six million Canadians do not have a family doctor, but there are ongoing efforts to change that. Heather Gillis of CBC breaks down some of the key strategies that the provinces and territories are using to try to cure the primary care crisis.
Unlike the traditional service rate system, the new model combines a payment structure similar to salary with compensation based on time dedicated to patients and the complexity of cases, according to the BC Ministry of Health.
On average, the province says that the model would increase the salary of a family doctor for $ 385,000 per yearabove approximately $ 250,000.
In their own statement, BC doctors said that the new payment model “already shows results”, with President Charlene Lui, qualifies it as a “vital step to attract doctors to BC and keep them in family medicine, which helps join more patients.”
A statement from the Ministry of Health said that changes related to rapid monitoring credentials for doctors in the coming months are expected. Similar changes are followed recently made in Ontario, Nueva Scotia and New Brunswick.
Osborne said that American nurses will soon be able to request a license directly with the BC Nurses College, which would then review their history of education, registration and regulatory in the national database of the nurses and disciplinary license of the US nurses. UU.
Challenges ahead
Around 400,000 people are still waiting to be paired with a family doctor, Osborne said, underlines the need for more help even with recent success.
The president of the BC Nurses Union, Adriane Gear, said there are about 6,000 BC nursing vacancies and highlighted the need to improve working conditions for those who already do the work.
“[We] We know that we can recruit people, but the question is, can we retain them? “He said in an interview last month.
Similarly, Dr. Rita McCracken, a family doctor and assistant teacher at UBC, said the province must continue looking for ways to expand recent improvements to payment models.
As the next step, he said, the province should seek not only in recruiting more doctors, but also establishing team -based clinics throughout the province, which would see a variety of medical professionals working in the same space.
“I think we must be ready to try new things. Mind them, keep those that work and release those that are not,” he said.
