The president of the BC Nurses Union is praising the province’s commitment to ease the shortage of nurses in BC.
Our government will spend 12-million dollars to speed up the accreditation process for foreign nurses, which can take up to two years.
Aman Grewal told Vista Radio the program is designed to attract 15-hundred new nurses to B-C, with some of them already working in the north, but in a much lesser capacity.
“And there are new nurses, internationally educated nurses who are working as care aides up north. You know, they were trained in a foreign country and we’re critical care nurses yet here in BC, they are working as a care aide.”
However, Grewal would also like to see the assessment process come back to BC – as of now, she stated it’s a North American credentialing company that controls the process right now.
“Having this process being done here in the province where the licensing is to take place would be ideal. It used to happen in the past and we would like to see that and I did start the conversation with Minister Dix (Adrian) and hope to have more future conversations with him around this.”
In addition, the new initiative will also provide financial assistance to those who need to upgrade their skills to qualify.
However, Grewal added over 26-thousand additional nurses will be needed by 2031.
– with files from Vista Radio newswire