Covering application and assessment fees for internationally trained nurses, scholarships for those returning to practice and faster processing are part of a package unveiled on Monday to address the nursing shortage.
After obtaining her nursing degree in Finland, where she worked as a registered nurse, Gabriela Kossonen began the process of applying for a nursing job in British Columbia in November 2020.
Today, Kossonen, who now lives in the Comox Valley, still works at a cafe in Mount Washington, one of her three jobs in the Comox Valley.
Although she has taken advantage of the system improvements since April, the experience has been so frustrating that she has sometimes considered giving up. She completed some assessments in July and then had to wait until Christmas for information on how to proceed with the required courses to be eligible to write the national registration exam for registered nurses.
“These courses will take me at least half a year to complete, due to the university-specific start dates and the availability of clinical practicum hospital slots,” said Kossonen, who added that she would not have been able to continue if not for her savings, her Canadian citizenship and initial placement with her grandparents.
The provincial assessment stage that precedes the national nursing assessment is expensive, she said, although she has been approved for partial reimbursement.
Met at the cafe on Monday, Kossonen, who also works in a non-clinical job at a hospital, applauded the province’s announcement that it is speeding up accreditation for internationally trained nurses to work in British Columbia
Streamlined accreditation is part of a package of incentives announced Monday to get more nurses working in British Columbia to ease a severe staffing shortage. Other incentives include coverage of hefty application and assessment fees for internationally trained nurses, thousands of dollars in support and scholarships for those returning to practice, and faster processing.
Premier David Eby, who unveiled the incentives at Langara College in Vancouver, said the province will cover the initial application and assessment fees of about $3,700 that have deterred some internationally educated nurses from putting their names forward.
The province is also providing more than $4,000 in new financial support to nurses returning to practice after a “period of absence” to cover application, assessment and certain travel expenses. Nurses returning to practice and internationally trained nurses will now be eligible for scholarships of up to $10,000 for any additional education needed.
Eby noted that since April, 5,500 nurses have indicated they want to work in British Columbia, with 2,000 in the process of being registered and assessed.
Talented and qualified nurses with the right experience have been kept out of an expensive and complicated registration process and “we need to fix that,” said Iby, who expects the registration process to be cut to four to nine months from three years in the streamlined assessment pathway , which is expected to launch later this month.
“[There are] The 2,000 nurses currently in the approval process can be on the hospital floor within 90 days,” Eby said in a media presence following the announcement. “It’s a remarkable change.”
Kossonen said the length of the process takes a bigger hurdle even than the fees. “That’s the biggest issue they need to work on, speeding it up – not rushing it and potentially getting unqualified people, but making sure qualified applicants don’t have to wait months or years to get to work in Canada.”
Aman Grewal, president of the British Columbia Nurses Union and a nurse of 36 years, said the changes offer hope for a strained and understaffed health system.
As of spring 2022, there were 5,200 nursing job vacancies in British Columbia, with 26,000 new nurses expected to be needed by 2031. “It will be exciting for us to be able to get more nurses to support nursing , who are already on the front lines,” Grewal said.
In November, nurses protested outside Nanaimo Regional General Hospital, saying they were burned out and overworked and that the hospital was overcapacity. Port Hardy Hospital’s emergency department, which regularly closes at night and on weekends due to a shortage of nurses and doctors, is closed overnight from 5pm to 7pm until January 23 due to “limited staff availability”.
Grewal, who attended the announcement in Vancouver, said the Nurses Union has been advocating for years to streamline the application process for internationally educated nurses.
BC Health Minister Adrian Dix, who last year outlined 70 actions to build BC’s health workforce, said the latest initiative is another step in that plan. Since April, when an initial plan for scholarships, application fee refunds and fast-tracking of grades was announced, there has been a “significant increase” in both interest and applications to practice in British Columbia, Dix said.
“What’s changed today, in addition, is that a significant portion of those costs will be paid up front by, essentially, the Department of Health directly to the college, and people won’t have to put the money up front and then apply – something , which is a big challenge for people.
In 2017, British Columbia was last out of 10 provinces in registered nurses per capita, but has since led Canada. Between 2015 and 2020, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, British Columbia led the way in registered nurse growth — a 9 percent increase, compared to 4 percent and 2 percent in Alberta and Ontario, respectively.
BC hired 62,501 registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses and licensed practical nurses in 2021, up from 57,191 in 2017, a nine percent increase.
Nurse practitioners working in British Columbia have more than doubled in the past five years, Dix said.
Dix said the province will regularly report on the impact of measures to increase the number of nurses in the province.
ceharnett@timescolonist.com
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