"A total of 1,200 American-trained workers have expressed interest in working in B.C., including 573 physicians, 413 nurses, 133 nurse practitioners and 39 allied health professionals."
The reason they want to move north according to Premier Eby:
The premier said that U.S. President Donald Trump’s loss is B.C.’s gain and that he expects even more health-care workers to want to leave the U.S. as the White House continues to attack reproductive rights, vaccines and the ability to get care no matter how little is in a patient’s bank account.
Okay. I can believe leftwing Healthcare workers might decide to move away from Orange Man Bad. But the recruiting strategy makes little sense:
The province also announced Monday that it will be starting an advertising campaign in June targeting health-care workers in Washington, Oregon and some cities in California, where the ministry says it has had the greatest interest in moving to B.C.
Idaho wrote a poor abortion law that caused many ob-gyns to leave. I can see advertising in states where governments limited abortion. But three states where abortion rights enjoy enormous protections? So far, RFK, Jr. has made a name for himself by endorsing the MMR vaccine. At worst, he has started an investigation of the claims about vaccines and autism. A study of existing work might be a useful way to calm those who are not fanatics.
Yes, patients with little in their bank account but who can wait and wait and wait for care. From "How long are Canadians waiting to access specialty care?" Canadian Family Physician
. 2020 Jun;66(6):434–444.Long wait times have become a defining characteristic of the Canadian health care system. In 2016, the Commonwealth Fund ranked Canada last among 11 countries surveyed on wait times for specialist care.1 Roughly one-fifth of Canadians report being negatively affected by wait times, citing experiences of stress, anxiety, pain, lost income, delays in diagnosis and treatment, duplications of tests, and deterioration in their conditions.2–4 In general, patients consider 3 months to be the maximum acceptable wait time for a specialist appointment.5–8
One of the things that I found bizarre when I lived in Canada was the persistent shortage of doctors and nurses. Each province has a monopoly single payer health system and statistically has a very good handle on how many new doctors and nurses they will need in each upcoming year. And each year they provide a number of residency positions within their own system that is far below that, and a number of intake positions to their public provincial medical schools that is below that.
ReplyDeleteEach province seems to be fully in control of how many newly minted doctors and nurses they can produce, and consistently produces an annual quantity that is substantially below their own easily predicted needs.
My BIL is a nurse - and has considered moving from BC to Montana...
ReplyDeleteIt goes both ways. Having practiced medicine in Canada (Ontario), I can attest that both systems are badly dysfunctional, but in very different ways.