By Cheryl Jahn

Nurse recruitment program a hit

May 22, 2025 | 2:10 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – Last week, the Province announced new processes for streamlining credential recognition for nurses from the United States. It means registrations are taking only a few days, compared to the previous average as long as four months.

“The government’s also put in some financial initiatives for nurses to come to Canada and work, and it’s working. We have nurses,” says Danette Thomsen, Regional Representative for the BC Nurses Union. “I met a young fellow from California up in Fort St. John. That’s up there working. Another nurse – she’s a spitfire from England who is up there. She was also trained in the United States, and they love Fort St John.”

But Northern Health has been ahead of the curve for a couple of years when it comes to the recruitment of nurses, with a home-grown program called Go Health.

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“So essentially, GoHealth is a response to the issues we are having with the recruitment of nurses to rural communities,” explains Marc Lawrence, Executive Director for GoHealth. “It goes all the way back to 2018. And it’s essentially an opportunity for nurses from across Canada to live in a preferred location but still work in northern British Columbia. So it’s very similar to a nursing travel agency. However, it’s provincially funded. The nurses are British Columbia nurses, union members. They work for collective agreement salaries and wages and benefits, etc., etc.”

So while the program has brought hundreds of nurses to the region and, frankly, the entire province, the goal is greater than that.

“Right now, we’re sitting around 550 nurses who are actively working with our program. Our goal is 1000. The goal is the end of next fiscal year. I could see us getting to a thousand before that, to be totally honest with you. And then once we get to 1000, we see I guess,” says Lawrence.

However, Thomsen says there are some things that need to happen before nurses come to the region on a more permanent basis.

“I think you have to have jobs for their family to their spouses would need work as well or and we need to have good health care for their children and education and and daycare. There’s lots to consider, but there’s lots communities can do to make nice as well.”

But she says the fact of the matter is, Northern Health is not functioning in isolation.

“We’re in a national and, actually a worldwide crisis for nurses, but I don’t want to see us robbing Peter to pay Paul either. I think that we do need to look at how do we get our own young people into nursing, how do we promote health care here? And even in Prince George.”

She cites programs in the high schools that target the trades. Why not health care?