Advocates question whether B.C.’s supports for nurses go far enough | 24CA News

Longtime B.C. advocates are skeptical of whether or not the federal government’s newly introduced helps to assist rent and prepare extra nurses go far sufficient.

On Monday, Premier David Eby mentioned new measures will help Canadian-trained nurses who need to get again into the workforce, in addition to internationally skilled nurses seeking to practise in B.C.

“Whether a nurse was trained in our province or not, we are ready to welcome those who are ready to care for British Columbians,” Eby mentioned throughout a news convention at Langara College in Vancouver.

Aman Grewal, president of the B.C. Nurses’ Union, mentioned the helps “should have been worked on decades ago.

“We, because the union, have been calling out that there’s going to be a nursing scarcity and nothing was ever executed and now we’re in that staffing scarcity and nursing disaster,” Grewal said in an interview.

Besides widespread burnout, Grewal said staffing shortages have meant that nurses are taking on non-nursing duties such as housekeeping and laundry.

She said more support staff are needed to fulfil those duties so nurses can dedicate their time to caring for patients. 

The B.C. government said it will offer financial support of up to $4,000 for Canada-trained nurses, to cover applications, assessments and eligible travel costs for current nurses to re-enter the system. There will also be up to $10,000 in bursaries for any additional education they might need to get back to work.

The province said it will cover the application and assessment fees for nurses trained abroad, which cost over $3,700. It also plans to spend $1.3 million to streamline the licensing process. 

Eby said the goal is to reduce the registration waiting period from the current three years to between four and nine months.

2,000 nurses could work in 90 days: government

The province said 2,000 nurses are currently in the registration and assessment process and could be working in 90 days because of the new changes. 

But Marie Tarrant, a professor in the school of nursing at the University of British Columbia Okanagan campus, said it’s more realistic that the “majority” of nurses will start working in about six months given the backlog of applications.

“There are many steps on this course of and lots of it’s simply slowed down in forms. There aren’t sufficient individuals doing the work of verifying {qualifications},” she said.

“It actually will depend on the international locations of origin and the way straightforward it’s to confirm {qualifications} again to these international locations.”

Over 5,200 vacant positions: union president

The nurses union said the 2,000 anticipated nurses will help but there’ll be a nursing shortage for years to come as there were more than 5,200 unfilled positions as of this past spring, according to Grewal.

“By 2031, we nonetheless want 26,000 new nurses,” Grewal said. 

Clifford Belgica with the B.C. chapter of the Philippine Nurses Association called the government’s changes “a begin.” He said it will take a long time to undo the harm done by years of policies that kept internationally trained nurses on the sidelines.

He said there are nurses who live in B.C. but are travelling to Seattle and other parts of the United States to work. 

“It’s simply forms on prime of forms on prime of forms that has made it so troublesome, unnecessarily,” he said.

He said the province needs to support nurses in other ways including by improving work conditions and doing more to recruit nurses abroad.

“We will nonetheless name for different issues,” Belgica said.

“We will nonetheless must suppose exterior the field to get this occurring as a result of the necessity is on the market.”