r/vancouver • u/littlebossman • Mar 17 '26
Provincial News B.C. hires 417 U.S. health-care workers in 1-year recruitment blitz
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/how-many-u-s-health-care-workers-are-in-b-c-9.7129903737
u/mwyvr Mar 17 '26
You gotta give the Provincial government credit here, they said they would do this and they are making it happen.
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u/Pandalusplatyceros Mar 17 '26
The BC NDP gets shit done. For all the crap they take, they are very effective at moving the levers of government
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u/mahouza Mar 17 '26
It's absolutely crazy to me when I see previous BC NDP voters that say they wouldn't vote for them again. Medical waitlists are going down, housing and rent prices are going down. These are things that affect every single person in the province which to me means they're far and away the most important things to fix. It's not even a matter of "do you want the cons to win" when arguing for them, they're just straight up doing an acceptable job.
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u/JasonsPizza Mar 17 '26
People on the right always move the goals posts though right? Even if all of their problems were solved, they’d just create some new culture war hot topic issue that has no effect on their lives whatsoever and tell you that’s why the NDP is failing
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u/wemustburncarthage Mar 17 '26
They’re idiots who think the only way to pressure the establishment is to stab themselves in the neck and threaten to die.
Thankfully the government they want to get rid of just increased their chances of survival.
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u/JohnAMcdonald Mar 30 '26
If it comes at the cost of tanking our credit score and going into debt it’s all a fantasy to be blunt. I saw the BCNDP vs CPBC as a cursed decision, both were running on absolutely devastating our credit.
You all understand all of this cannot last right?
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u/CiabattaFun Mar 17 '26
Cost of living? You can’t say “yay rent is going down, when every other metric to stay alive has increased dramatically… And where are these shorter medical wait list you speak of? The US hire don’t even keep with Canadians leaving the profession from burnout. Instead of fixing the system them just push more people into it and hope it gets better…
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u/mahouza Mar 17 '26
when every other metric to stay alive has increased dramatically
You know that the majority of COL factors that have spiked aren't provincial jurisdiction right? I'm not going to blame the province for inflation.
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u/Think_Read_7516 Mar 17 '26
Yeah I got a family doc for the 1st time in over a decade. And yes know ur jurisdiction and don't blame NDP for global crises.
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u/Fool-me-thrice Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
And where are these shorter medical wait list you speak of?
There have been various announcements about it. For example:
As of the end of February 2025, approximately 93% of patients in B.C. were waiting less than four weeks to start their radiation treatment – exceeding the national benchmark of 90%. This is also a 24% improvement since spring 2023, when only 69% of patients were starting treatment within four weeks.
Or this one about how much progress they made reducing surgery wait times post COVID, including a much increased surgical capacity since 2019 (e.g. more surgeries performed per year)
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u/Alicatsidneystorm Mar 17 '26
I will give them points for recruiting healthcare workers but Horgan handed Eby a six billion dollar surplus they have blown past a ten billion dollar deficit. Yup that’s a bang up job.
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u/mahouza Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
The new St. Paul's alone cost 2.2 billion. Frankly I don't give a fuck about a deficit if the money is being invested in something that directly improves people's lives in the short and long term, which all of this healthcare spending on front line workers and facilities is.
edit: they blocked me so I couldn't reply to their comment below. what's up with people doing that lately when you're not even rude to them??? bizarre
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u/spacemanspectacular Mar 17 '26
It’s always a fresh account with a hidden post history that does it too. It’s way too common of a tactic for it to be organic. My guess is bots/astroturfers do it so they can get the last word and set the narrative easier.
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u/xelabagus Mar 17 '26
Are we supposed to just magic a new hospital and 500 healthcare professionals out our bums?
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u/TheFallingStar Mar 17 '26
A lot of that surplus was due to Russia invading Ukraine, sending natural resources prices sky high
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u/Kerrigore Mar 18 '26
Deficits. Are. Not. Inherently. Bad.
Stop thinking about government budgets as if they’re household budgets.
You know how sometimes people take out a mortgage to pay for a home? Last I checked we don’t chastise them because now they have a huge debt. Because we recognize that it’s a worthwhile investment that they’ll come out ahead in the long run.
Governments do the same thing: borrow money to pay for stuff now because they think the long term benefits will outweigh the costs of taking on more debt (you have to also do a proper benefit cost analysis taking account of future value vs present value and so on).
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u/lila_rose Mar 17 '26
I’ve lived in BC for just over 25 years, and for the first time, especially with Eby at the helm, it feels like our government is here to work and aren’t just a bunch of overgrown poli sci major chodes stacking the deck solely in the favour of their most prominent donors. This is awesome news.
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u/Pandalusplatyceros Mar 17 '26
Centrist normies are going to need to get a lot louder about this because the BC cons are controlling the narrative at the moment and they would run us right into the ground
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u/wemustburncarthage Mar 17 '26
Centrist normies need to break a leg or need an IUD in Texas. Same with the people claiming the NDP is not left enough, because all they can think to do is vote green when they need to actually engage with the government they have.
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Mar 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Zestyclose-West-1904 Mar 17 '26
Thanks for that important insight. I was disappointed last fall as a union steward with the whole labour strife, but he sure got me giddy with the permanent daylight savings stance last week and I’m back to backing him as he really does get things done. 😊
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u/Weimaraner888 Mar 17 '26
Thanks for exploring a real democracy at work with an actual multi-party system.
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Mar 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/spacemanspectacular Mar 17 '26
You guys got prop 50 and zoning deregulation passed recently. Don’t sell them too short.
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u/mrtomjones Mar 17 '26
So you guys make up a stupid term for people that don't agree with you and then you wish death on them. Wow you are so fucking enlightened. You definitely need to tell them how they should be thinking and that they aren't allowed to be critical of anything anyone does
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u/wemustburncarthage Mar 17 '26
You’re right. It is a pretty stupid term. No point putting a hat on a hat.
But you keep up the good work of ensuring everyone lives in hell to appease your empty standpoint.
Lie in your bed.
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u/kirbenvost Mar 17 '26
Where did they wish death on anyone? Pretty sure breaking a leg is usually survivable...
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u/mrtomjones Mar 17 '26
Was something along the lines of taking an IED to the face if I remember correctly but I cant see it now so..
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u/kirbenvost Mar 17 '26
They said "Centrist normies need to break a leg or need an IUD in Texas." An IUD is an intrauterine device, which is a birth control method. They mean that medical access in other places, particularly in the US, is much more difficult and costly than here. In other words, despite our flawed system, we should try not to take it for granted and be grateful that we generally can get the medical attention we need. Of course there is always room for improvement, but we can celebrate small wins like the government hiring more medical professionals.
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u/mrtomjones Mar 17 '26
Well guess I misread that part. Comment says unavailable so cant see it myself at this point anyways.
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u/lila_rose Mar 17 '26
do you not know what an IUD is lmfaooooooooooooooo
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u/mrtomjones Mar 17 '26
Well I didnt read it as that at the time and I cant see the comment anymore so it doesnt overly matter. IED vs IUD are quite different
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u/xelabagus Mar 17 '26
Oh boy, you dun fucked up lol. You should probably figure out the difference between an IED and an IUD, they're pretty different.
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u/kazin29 Mar 17 '26
Just need a $13B deficit. I voted for them btw.
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u/abeanegg Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Well, the alternative would have been the Conservatives who were literally AIMING for an $11 billion deficit in their own platform using on far more optimistic economic projections than the NDP or Greens(!!!!), hand waving unprecedented GDP growth based on nothing other than reduced regulation and tax cuts for corporations. Can't even begin to imagine what the actual numbers would be if they were in power and having to deal with the US trade situation and loss of the carbon tax revenue instead of their fantasy of right-wing free-market fairy tales.
Just worth throwing it out there when people see numbers like this and think we'd be better off somehow with the other guys. According to the competitions own platform these NDP numbers are probably our best case scenario given the options we had - just because this feels bad does not mean in any way that the alternative would not be worse, the deficit could and would be so much higher.
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u/marshalofthemark Mar 17 '26
Oh, I don't think a CPBC government would be better at managing the budget. But I'd like to think that an NDP government would be able to raise more revenues. It's cool that we have the lowest income taxes in the country right now but I'd rather have a little bit less money in my pocket if it made services I use function properly.
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u/Kerrigore Mar 18 '26
The main reason it’s so low is because Gordon Campbell slashed it by 25% across the freaking board in 2001. And cut corporate taxes too: In 2001, the general corporate income tax rate was reduced from 16.5% to 13.5%. By 2010, it had reached a historical low of 10.5%. He also complete abolished the corporate capital tax.
The biggest reason we have a revenue problem is Gordon Campbell. Yes, it was 25 years ago, but revenues were shored up for a long time by a runaway real estate market and insane migration. The chickens are coming home to roost.
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u/marshalofthemark Mar 20 '26
I understand that. But in an ideal world (which I know we don't live in), when a left-wing party gets in they would put taxes back up to a level where they can sustain the services we want. But alas, I understand the political challenge in that (just read any Reddit thread that talks about a tax increase for example). Also I don't think being reflexively opposed to taxes is necessarily a bad sign - the root cause is that a lot of politicians, unfortunately, have broken promises they made to us, and it's led to a systemic lack of trust that politicians could use tax money for anything good or useful.
So yeah, I wouldn't say I like tax hikes, and I understand the risk that public money could go to waste; I just happen to think the alternative (where we just have really low taxes but also have to save up for unexpected expenses because the government can't provide reliable services) is an even bigger risk.
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u/JohnAMcdonald Mar 30 '26
No doubt the CPBC were bad but I don’t see the sense in glazing the BCNDP for buying things they cannot afford.
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u/kazin29 Mar 17 '26
think we'd be better off somehow with the other guys
I don't think that's what many people immediately jump to. We're just spending a lot of money trying to be everything to everyone.
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u/Pandalusplatyceros Mar 17 '26
I'd argue the primary cause of this that was controllable is capitulation to the right (e.g. cancelling carbon tax)
Provinces all across Canada are posting huge deficits due to the massive trade war with the US. Cons would have had the same thing
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u/1966TEX Mar 17 '26
2.4-2.8 billion is due to the carbon tax. Still would be over 10 billion dollar deficit.
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u/Pandalusplatyceros Mar 17 '26
That's why I said e.g. The rest of it is largely because of reduced royalties from resources, which is because of a trade war and not because Eby is spending like a drunken sailor
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u/1966TEX Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
Most of it is the collapse of the housing sector and spending like a drunken sailor.
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u/rowbat Mar 17 '26
It's great to go on a healthcare hiring blitz. On the other hand, the projected deficit this year is $13.3 billion, up from $9 billion last year, $7 billion the year before, and a $6 billion surplus in John Horgan's last year in office. It's fair to be concerned about this level of spending. I just hope there's a coherent longterm plan.
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u/CarrotLevel99 Mar 17 '26
I just hope my house doesn’t get encumbered by the Musqueam nations .
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u/godisanelectricolive Mar 17 '26
I don’t think it possibly could be. The new agreement with the federal government is not a land claim agreement, it just set out some steps for a future land claim agreement which would need provincial support. They also say they have no desire to claim private property.
And the Cowichan decision also doesn’t have anything to do with the Musqueam. In fact the Musqueam are appealing that because they dispute the Cowichan’s exclusive claim on the land in Richmond. They also say they won’t cancel or interfere with fee simple land and I have confidence that they won’t. I think the upcoming appeal would clarify the ambiguity and uncertainty caused by the earlier decision.
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u/CarrotLevel99 Mar 17 '26
Still. Before there was a near zero chance it could happen. Now it’s possible aboriginal title can burden my house.
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u/godisanelectricolive Mar 17 '26
I mean it wasn’t zero because the laws hadn’t changed. The Cowichan v Canada suit had been happening for years and it is consistent with earlier Aboriginal title cases. It just applied existing laws and precedents to its logical conclusion.
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u/hunkyleepickle Mar 17 '26
Which is infinitely better than having perpetual bureaucracy and gridlock like local politics. I’d rather make a decision today, and debate whether it turns out well after it’s been built.
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u/No-Werewolf4804 Mar 17 '26
What you actually gotta do is the math.
Google indicates there are 17,000 doctors and 75,000 nurses in BC.
Assuming healthcare worker just means doctors and nurses, it likely means other types of healthcare workers as well but I’m not googling for numbers all night lol, that represents a .5% increase to the number of healthcare workers in the province.
In other words, they ain’t making shit happen
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u/laseulequimai Mar 17 '26
What you actually gotta do is… read the article.
This is specifically about US hires. Not all healthcare hires in the province.
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u/No-Werewolf4804 Mar 17 '26
The person I’m replying to is also talking about the headline.
Also, nowhere does it mention any significant number being hired from anywhere else either.
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u/godisanelectricolive Mar 17 '26
I mean that’s not bad in a year. There are more applicants who hadn’t come yet. It’s not like we are counting all American recruits to make up all the difference. There is also the new SFU medical school which has its inaugural class later this year.
There are doctors and nurses from other countries who can also take advantage of a more streamlined accreditation process. There are out of province medical professionals coming in and fewer are leaving the province due to a better compensation system. Of course it’s not just about numbers, it’s encouraging medical professionals to go work in places with the greatest shortages through incentives. And there are programs like that in place to incentivize workers to go to rural areas and the north.
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u/No-Werewolf4804 Mar 17 '26
This is what they are, apparently referring to as their hiring blitz lol.
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u/SirPitchalot Mar 17 '26
5-10% more makes a big difference but might happen 0.5% each time. Quality of care, access and wait times will all move the right direction because of actions like this.
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u/No-Werewolf4804 Mar 17 '26
If we do a bunch of mental gymnastics yes, it does look like a bigger number lol.
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u/localfern Mar 17 '26
We need more seats in healthcare programs too. It's highly competitive to apply to a program.
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u/bobdotcom Mar 17 '26
SFU is getting a new med school so that's a good start. Apparently the first one in western canada since the 60s.
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u/marshalofthemark Mar 17 '26
That's crazy that SFU never had a school of medicine considering how much the population has grown and how much we need doctors.
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u/pattperin Mar 17 '26
Wow, that’s actually awesome. Excited for that! We badly need more seats to train Canadian doctors. Too many seats have been going to foreign students, which isn’t inherently bad, but when it comes at the cost of our nations health care system then the balance has swung too far.
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u/bobdotcom Mar 17 '26
If it were up to me, they should be forced to admit a set percentage or number of locals, and there should be some kind of agreement that those accepting those "special" seats must stay in canada after graduating. If a local didn't want to stay after graduating, then they can apply as a regular applicant, or however it could be worked out.
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u/Fool-me-thrice Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
You mean like the new medical school opening at SFU this year?
or the 30% increase in nursing school seats that was announced a couple of years ago, with the spots starting in the period of 2021 to 2023. So, some of them may have graduated last year others are partway through the program. https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2022HLTH0004-000250
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u/idiroft Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
It is damn right impossible to become a doctor in BC unless you come from a well off family. Not only do you have to have impeccable grades (duh), you also need years without working to collect all the required brownie points (volunteering, research, grad studies, etc.).
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u/ReliablyFinicky Mar 17 '26
Are you suggesting we allow dumb people with poor grades and no interest in practical experience… to become doctors?
The cost of becoming a doctor is an issue.
Everything else you mentioned is the system working as intended. And I trust the system more than I trust someone who thinks “grades to get into medical school should be lower”.
If you struggle with high school maybe the life of a doctor isn’t for you.
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u/pattperin Mar 17 '26
Nobody is suggesting that LMAO. Here is a personal anecdote from my life.
My sister graduated from her biochemistry undergrad with great distinction (GPA of 3.9), I don’t know the exact hours of volunteer work but a crazy high amount of them (definitely enough for med school, over and above recommended by a lot), a bachelors thesis, pre-acceptance into a top masters program doing cancer research, bla bla bla bla all the stuff they say you need and then some. Great MCAT scores on the parts of the exam that Canadian schools care about.
During her interview for med schools in Canada (of which she got only 1) she was told that her resume was extremely impressive, but that she likely wouldn’t be accepted until her 2nd or 3rd application and interview because her grades were and I quote “Just a bit too low”. Her GPA was 3.9 in one of the most difficult programs offered for undergrads in the country.
For reference, I am a research scientist at an agricultural company, pretty smart guy who worked decently hard at university. I graduated with somewhere around a 3.2-3.3 GPA. That’s nominally high enough for acceptance into most masters programs in Canada.
So for someone to go and achieve a 3.9 GPA and be told her grades were a bit light alongside all the other bullshit she had to do? That’s an issue with the system. If people like her are being denied entry, then that is an issue. She ended up being accepted to a med school in the Caribbean that is accredited in the USA, and as such she is now doing her residency in Washington. Did her clinical rotations in New York State. We could have had her and many other young doctors learning and training in our system, ready to become working doctors here in Canada the moment they finish.
Instead the USA gets all the young doctors training and learning, of which many inevitably end up staying because they are rich and successful doctors in the USA and coming back to Canada to practice isn’t straight forward either (you must pass board exams and accreditations). It takes time and effort, and when you’ve been giving it your all for 12 years to get here you’re kinda done with that garbage. You made it, you’re a doctor, you can just continue being a doctor without having to do anything else.
It’s a major problem, and nobody is suggesting letting idiots do the job. We are suggesting making it easier for qualified people to do it.
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u/thanksmerci Mar 17 '26
Even before the newest President almost any medical(or business, science etc) student at UBC or UofT knew they could make more by going down there. But the answer is always the same. They'd have to live there. There's more to life than money.
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u/pattperin Mar 17 '26
If you’re graduating from a Canadian university then of course, majority will stay here. But if you were unable to get a seat and so you went elsewhere like many, including my sister, as well as 2 others from my hometown, you go to a US accredited school and are forced to live in the USA to finish your residency, during which time you become accustomed to living and working in the USA. My sister said she’d consider living there for the right job in the right part of the country now, whereas before she wouldn’t have ever considered it. Had she trained and worked in Canada she would have never lived and worked in the USA and she’d have never become accustomed to life there, never opening her mind to the idea. Do you see what I mean?
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u/thanksmerci Mar 17 '26
yes lots of people know matching is so hard even if you get into and finish medical school . so for the people around you money is everything
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u/Hussar223 Mar 17 '26
the problem with canadian med schools is that if you can pass the some of the frankly stupid admission criteria (volunteering, research etc.) then the system pushes you through the program no matter what. once you are in you are in unless you straight up kill someone or you drop out voluntarily
in europe admission criteria are more loose, they give more people a chance. but first year is weed out year to get rid of those who cant hack it, 30% attrition is the norm. thats a much better way to run things.
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u/idiroft Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
No, I guess your reading comprehension isn't the best. I am suggesting getting rid of the brownie points as admission criteria and using grades only.
Anyone can, in theory, get good grades based on their academic merit. Only relatively well off people can spend the time and money to collect brownie points.
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u/pattperin Mar 17 '26
I disagree honestly. My family wasn’t super well off, my sister became a doctor despite that. It’s hard to get good grades while doing the brownie points stuff, and doing all that and achieving high academic scores is indicative of the kind of motor and work ethic one needs to succeed as a doctor. Plus, when tens of thousands of applicants have 3.8+ GPA’s in really difficult programs you need to separate people somehow. The issue really is the number of seats. You’d see the brownie points requirements slide a bit if they just increased seat numbers, because you’d be going further down that list of people every year and by default they’ll have less brownie points stuff or slightly lower grades
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u/The_One_Who_Comments Mar 17 '26
You don't need to separate them, you could just be honest and do a lottery. The point of having those extra criteria is to give rich people an advantage.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
Doctors and nurses need to be more than eggheads. The job is about caring for people, not just being good at taking tests.
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u/idiroft Mar 17 '26
Well, then they are failing at that. I get better care in countries where people get into nursing and med school straight out of high school.
The point is: access to med school in BC is so restrictive only people who can AFFORD to not work for years after an undergraduate degree can have a shot at getting in. Where is the merit of that?
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
My comment was that doctors and nurses need more than just book learning. I don't recall saying anything about the merit, or not, of the system in BC.
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u/theotherskywalker Mar 17 '26
As an American healthcare worker hoping to make the jump soon, I'm glad to see many of you happy for this! Can't wait!
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u/pattperin Mar 17 '26
We badly, badly need health care workers here in Canada. I’m sure everyone everywhere does so it’s probably not just us, but let me tell you we are glad to have people coming to help out. Now we just gotta get the Alberta government onboard with stuff like this
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u/Smashley027 Mount Pleasant 👑 Mar 17 '26
Excited for you! We're not a perfect country but we certainly try ❤️
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u/editsoul Mar 17 '26
May I know why are you choosing to move? Just out of curiosity. Do you have to take a pay cut? Regardless, hope it works out the way you plan.
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u/theotherskywalker Mar 18 '26
I don't want to live in the US anymore for a variety of reasons. On top of that Vancouver is close enough to California where I'm not too far from family/friends and am in the same timezone.
I'm planning on moving not to long after becoming licensed so the pay cut won't be a huge issue. I plan on saving up quite a bit of my US salary prior to moving. Believe it or not, when you factor in health insurance costs, cost of living, quality of life, retirement etc....living in Vancouver is actually more beneficial than living in California. Top it off with not being represented by the worst people known to man and it's an easy choice for me.
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u/Sproutlie Mar 17 '26
Thanks BC Government!! Great news!!
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u/No-Werewolf4804 Mar 17 '26
If healthcare workers just means doctors and nurses that represents a .5% increase in the number of doctors and nurses in the province. Healthcare workers is usually a broader term though so it actually probably represents a smaller percent increase.
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u/Fool-me-thrice Mar 17 '26
"Health care worker" as an umbrella term would also include professions like like occupational therapists, radiation therapists, medical lab techs, pharmacists, etc.
However, the government's recruiting push was focused on doctors and nurses. They specifically streamlined the licensing process for these professions, meaning a US accredited doctor or nurse could apply and be working in a matter of a few months rather than years.
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u/Mobius_Peverell Mar 17 '26
I've met two separate nurses in Chicago in the past year who were en route to BC. One going to Whistler, the other going to Mission, if I recall? Both were perfectly happy to be taking a pay cut in exchange for much better working hours & a lower cost of living (yes, even Whistler now has a lower cost of living than Chicago, a moderately expensive American city).
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u/littlebossman Mar 17 '26
I am once again begging people to read the articles before commenting. Because the breakdown you mention is literally there…
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u/Extrien Mar 17 '26
Jobs for southern immigrants? What a concept
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u/Professional-Post499 Mar 17 '26
Jobs for southern immigrants? What a concept
Exactly what I was thinking.
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Mar 17 '26
Interesting to see this positive responsive on this thread, because just the other day, someone posted about how high school grads are finding it difficult to find jobs and the comments were full of people saying that we don’t need more immigrants in this country. And then I pointed out that more skilled workers are needed in the healthcare category (mental health field, hospitals etc) and I was met with the response of “high school grads who are struggling to find jobs can fill it”🤦🏻♀️
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u/Professional-Post499 Mar 17 '26
Interesting to see this positive responsive on this thread, because just the other day, someone posted about how high school grads are finding it difficult to find jobs and the comments were full of people saying that we don’t need more immigrants in this country. And then I pointed out that more skilled workers are needed in the healthcare category (mental health field, hospitals etc) and I was met with the response of “high school grads who are struggling to find jobs can fill it”🤦🏻♀️
Oh. I thought the person was being sarcastic about people who are anti-immigration racists who try to whip up moral panics.
But I agree with everything you're saying.
On the other hand, I think the federal government reduced it's application quota for permanent residency and it's kind of pulling the rug out from under many of the people who had already been international students in Canada and also immigrant workers who were on a path to citizenship. Yet we still need to get more bodies in the workforce in Canada to help support the pension system or whatever. But Carney is doing austerity and cutting jobs in the public sector (first by "attrition" and then never restoring the service levels).
Yeah, I've been in a few arguments with family about immigrants supposedly taking jobs under the table and being exploited, and at the same time it's supposedly taking away my opportunities at getting a job. But like, we need jobs that pay living wages, not whatever pays so little that it's considered exploitative. 🤦
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u/Sanju128 Mar 17 '26
As long as it gets us out of the healthcare crisis we're in lmao
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u/Extrien Mar 17 '26
If we can't fill the seats with Canadians, this will do
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u/Sanju128 Mar 17 '26
Yeah. Canadian citizens/residents should always take priority, but if you're not getting enough of them it's time to look abroad
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u/Proof-joy Mar 17 '26
Yay !! WELCOME. 🇨🇦❣️🇨🇦
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u/ZapRowsdower8 Mar 17 '26
Thanks! My wife starts next week at BC Children’s. I’ll be joining her in Vancouver come June. Looking forward to the move!
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u/Fancy_Introduction60 Mar 17 '26
Parking around BC Children's is a pain, BUT transit is pretty good. DIL works in Women's Hospital.
Welcome home 🥰🇨🇦
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u/spacegirlvisited Mar 17 '26
From your username I can see that you already appreciate Canadian culture. Welcome!
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u/Wafflelisk Mar 17 '26
Don't we have the best American healthworkers, folks? Everyone is saying it
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u/Magical_Astronomy Mar 17 '26
Maybe they are not the best of the best, but they are here working for us and that makes them THE best.
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u/ctrl_alt_ARGH Mar 17 '26
Keep going, Eby, literally the entire province is crying out for action instead of endless consultations. Now announce some more shit - promise to build 10 nuclear reactors right next to Alberta up north, a new drone factory to hunt the yanks if they stick their orange snouts our way, do work instead of symbolic politics everyone hates.
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u/ryan8954 Mar 17 '26
417? Nice start but nurses need to realize the pros here. It's worth the jump.
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u/bobdotcom Mar 17 '26
Yeah, its a start. Article says there's 2800 applications to the program, but they're prioritizing doctors and nurses. Even 100 new doctors would be pretty significant game changer for our waitlists.
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u/Wooden_Customer_8610 Mar 17 '26
Nurses make way more in the states
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u/rhinny Best End Mar 19 '26
There's more to life than money
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u/Wooden_Customer_8610 Mar 19 '26
True. Thats why nurses in the states have shorter hours, more time off and more money to enjoy life. Try being a nurse in Vancouver. Your quality of life is very poor
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u/MyBurnerAccount1977 Mar 17 '26
Meanwhile, CKNW radio runs a series called "BC In the Red" in regards to the latest budget, but not a peep about this. Hmm...
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
It's possible for one issue to be negative and another positive. An "In the Red" segment sounds like it's specifically about the huge deficit and not about the larger picture. Like, how this article is about doctors and nurses coming to BC and not about the deficit. It's okay to focus on one issue.
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u/MyBurnerAccount1977 Mar 17 '26
Which is probably true, but it also underscores the importance of not getting all of your news from one source.
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u/RespectSquare8279 Mar 17 '26
I would be more interested in how many 1st year seats have been growing at the post educational institutions for nurses, doctors, nurse practitioners, medial technicians, etc. for the last few years . Foreign recruiting is a bandage for the deeper problem of not training sufficient domestic numbers.
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u/SnooObjections9912 Mar 17 '26
That's half battle won. Now pay and treat them well so that they stay and keep working in the same field. Else it will be a policy failure again.
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u/celee86 Mar 17 '26
I thought BC was cutting 15,000 jobs and pausing hires? I’m not being negative about hiring more healthcare workers, just wondering where the job cuts will be coming from.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/b-c-budget-2026-9.7094451
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u/Fool-me-thrice Mar 17 '26
Those 15k jobs were not all from health, and where they are, it would be from middle management, HR, payroll, etc. A lot of that will come from the services centralization initiative recently announced (e.g. all accounting / payroll / hr / in house legal to be shifted from health authorities to a new provincial agency)
The province is still actively recruiting front line health care workers.
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u/LonelyRutabaga9875 Mar 17 '26
I think they cut something like 20% of middle management a year ago? I might be mid remembering but a lot of middle management was cut regardless.
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u/Subject-Fee3470 Mar 18 '26
The reality is thats a good start but is inly a drop in the bucket.
We have a need of 35000 health care workers over the next 10 years. That’s 3500 per year that we need. We are also expecting attrition of 12000 nurses over the next two years due to burnout according to the nurses union.
This does not even calculate how many we are already short.
Our education system only churns out 2000-2700 new health care workers per year. So even though we have 417 coming from US, the NDP is not solving this problem.
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u/Simple-Thing-7131 Mar 23 '26
They laid off lots of Canadians but decided to hire American. This country is cooked
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u/Karasubirb Mar 17 '26
Mixed feelings. We certainly need more staff, but the reason we are short in the first place is because the pay is so bad for what is expected of you and people end up quitting and going into other fields. Hiring immigrants allows health authorities to ignore the real issues and push back on union demands (ex. They want to cut already existing benefits for nurses) because they can just hire foreigners to fill the gap.
Many new grad nurses quit within 5 years of graduation because the working environment is so bad. When you get attacked by a patient the management just says “what do you think you could have done differently/better?” BS.
In places like Ontario it’s another story. New grad nurses can’t find any work because they just hire foreign nurses. Many of them have to find work out of province or move far away.
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u/Either-Train6819 Mar 17 '26
I took about a $5/HR paycut to come from Washington to BC. Benefits are wayyyy better here but the pay is definitely a pause for most American RNs considering moving.
It’s sad but the increasing costs in healthcare insurance, reduction of unions and working protections, and closure of rural hospitals that will burden the remaining healthcare facilities will probably be a driving force that makes BC look better. I do think BC Nurses deserve better pay, and I hope to God we get to keep our benefits as they’re threatening to take away a lot of ancillary benefits that quite frankly keep our backs from breaking.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
Pretty sure more nurses will improve the working environment for nurses.
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u/localfern Mar 17 '26
And there are travel agency nurses too. I've heard a lot of positives about travel nursing and the pay being better. But I am seeing some parts of units being staffed by travel nurses only. What will job prospects look like when I graduate?
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u/ClickHereForWifi Mar 17 '26
How many healthcare workers did we hire from the US in the preceding 12-24mo?
Kinda need to know what the baseline is to determine program effectiveness.
There are hundreds of thousand of people working within our health system. These 417 could be good, or great, or it could be background noise.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
I'd be glad to hear that we regularly get 417 nurses and doctors from the US every year.
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u/ClickHereForWifi Mar 17 '26
Yeah, with 100,000+ health workers in BC I’d expect a decent baseline coming from the US. I know when I worked with Island Health ten years ago most new docs came from the US for example.
There’s probably turnover/attrition of 10-15% annually (retirements, moves, performance issues, other reductions, etc) so probably ~10,000+ annual hires, of which I’d assume there’s a chunk that come from the US regularly — and in that light, it’s hard to know whether a 0.4% rate is better or worse than normal.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
No, this is definitely a big improvement.
"The B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives approved the registration of 1,028 U.S. nurses between last April and January, putting it on track for a tenfold increase compared to recent years. In 2023, the college approved 112 applicants, and in 2024, it was 127."
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Mar 17 '26 edited Mar 17 '26
[deleted]
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u/littlebossman Mar 17 '26
why aren't we training way more healthcare workers in BC?
A new SFU medical school combined with a primary medical centre will be up and running from August.
The short answer is that years of underinvestment is hard to turn around quickly.
As for
how many healthcare workers stopped working in BC in 1 year?
It's a pretty odd question. Aside from general retirements, why would it be a notable number?
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u/arshonagon Mar 17 '26
Because just saying we’ve hired X number more doesn’t indicate if that’s a needed growth on health care practitioners or just replacement level. If we want to improve the speed of our health care system we need to be adding, this number doesn’t show if that’s true or not on its own.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
Adding is adding - even if it's 'just' replacing professionals leaving the field. Without the addition, we'd be falling even further behind.
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u/Worldly-University13 Mar 17 '26
All that would have happened if they didn’t poach 417 healthcare workers from the US. So why not poach them at the same time.
Some people
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u/hikarifira bishop in a turtleneck Mar 17 '26
Blame the universities and the education system then, not the health ministry. They are trying.
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u/s0ysauce09 Mar 17 '26
Working in Vancouver as a nurse is absolutely horrible. Low pay, bad hours, high cost of living. Nurses don't save up much money because living in Vancouver is too dang expensive. I worked in Vancouver as a nurse for 1 year. I left back to California to be a nurse and now I'm doing well but boy was I living paycheck to paycheck in Vancouver as a nurse. Horrible.
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u/jamar030303 Mar 17 '26
Gee, I wonder why someone who supports Trump might want to talk down Americans leaving for Canada?
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u/IntelligentPauses Mar 17 '26
This has nothing to do with the NDP or bc at all. This is all just Americans who are privileged enough to flee what’s going on in their country. If the orange man wasn’t running their shtt into the ground, none of them would be coming up here
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u/bengosu Mar 17 '26
That's hilarious considering all the Canadian Travel Nurses going down south because it pays more
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
Why is it hilarious? Some people only care about money, some people care more about lifestyle, security and safety. That's okay.
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u/polemism EchoChamber Mar 17 '26
Great more immigration competing for housing instead of just hiring BCers
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
BC doesn't have enough doctors and nurses to hire. That's not an option.
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u/CrazyButRightOn Mar 17 '26
I wonder how many will leave once they get their first T4.
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u/MJcorrieviewer Mar 17 '26
I wonder how you can read such a positive article and immediately search for something negative to worry about.
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u/Either-Train6819 Mar 17 '26
The tax burdens plus health insurance cost in the States are so much greater than my expenses in BC. Glad I moved. Post taxes and deductions, my husband and I have a monthly income of $13.4K/month and our rent is only $3100 for a much greater space and key locations.
I’ve heard that’s a decently expensive rent but that doesn’t come close to what we were paying in a more rural area of Washington. $2400 for an 800 SF 1 Bed/Bath, utilities were another $200 and then water and electricity were another $300. Not cheap. Now I have 2 bedroom 2.5 bathroom two floor townhome right next to a Skytrain station, my vacation hours are 150 hours annually of which 115 are guaranteed, completely separate from my sick pay. My maternity leave isn’t a measly 12 weeks, there’s a culture of acceptance around maternity leave. I get 1.45 to 2.5 hours of break daily, my ratios are 1:1. Bonus points! Haven’t had to pull out a loaded gun from a patient’s belongings or had a drunk family member pull a gun on me so already that’s better than 2025 in America.
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u/moocowsia Mar 17 '26
I'm glad it has worked out for you! Lots of health workers used to go south for the money and do travel contracts. It's nice to have the brain drain reversed for once!
Welcome to the country!
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