NationTalk: VANCOUVER – May 1, 2024: People accessing health care will benefit from a stronger workforce as the Province further invests in recruitment, retention and training initiatives for allied health and clinical support workers.
“Supporting the allied health-care workforce is critical to strengthening our public health-care system,” said Adrian Dix, Minister of Health. “By investing in recruitment and retention initiatives for allied health professionals and clinical support staff, we are ensuring that people have access to the vital health-care services this workforce delivers, no matter where they live in B.C.”
To support the implementation of B.C.’s Health Human Resources Strategy and the Allied Health Strategic Plan, the Province is investing up to $155.7 million in initiatives that will retain and recruit allied health and clinical support staff.
This includes up to $73.1 million for retention and recruitment incentives to expand the Provincial Rural Retention Incentive and provide signing bonuses for those who fill high-needs vacancies.
Effective April 1, 2024, the Provincial Rural Retention Incentive for health-care workers living and working in rural and remote communities was expanded. All occupations working in eligible communities, including those represented by the Health Sciences Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA/HSA), Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA) and Community Bargaining Association (CBA) will receive the incentive, totalling up to $8,000 per year per person.
To support recruitment of allied health and clinical support workers, signing bonuses will be available for staff who fill high-needs vacancies in priority occupations in rural and remote areas, difficult-to-fill vacancies in urban and metro communities, and for medical lab technologists who join GoHealth BC, a travel health-care program that sends health-authority staff on short-term deployments to rural and remote communities.
These recruitment initiatives will support bringing in new allied health and clinical support health-care staff to fill vacancies, ensuring more people around B.C. can access the care they need.
To support retention and career development, the Province is providing up to $15 million over three years for allied health clinical mentorship, peer support and transition-to-practice support for allied health new entrants, including new graduates and internationally educated allied health professionals.
In addition, the Province is providing $20 million each to the HSPBA, CBA and FBA for a total investment of $60 million to deliver supports for professional development, mental health and wellness to their members.
Up to $7.6 million will be provided for training initiatives, including tuition credits, bursaries to offset licensing exam fees for new graduates and new employer-sponsored earn-and-learn opportunities.
This work is part of the Allied Health Strategic Plan, which highlights 42 actions from B.C.’s Health Human Resources (HHR) Strategy and introduces 15 new actions to advance retention, recruitment, training and innovation initiatives that directly benefit the allied health workforce in B.C.
The HHR Strategy advances 70 actions to retain, recruit and train health-care workers in B.C., while supporting innovative health-system redesign and optimization.
Learn More:
To learn more about how B.C.’s Health Human Resources Strategy is strengthening health care, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023HLTH0150-001930
For more information about what the Province is doing to support allied health professionals, visit: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2023HLTH0149-001926
Four backgrounders follow.
Contact:
Ministry of Health
Media Relations
250 952-1887
BACKGROUNDER 1
What people are saying about new supports for allied health professionals
Jennifer Rice, Parliamentary Secretary for Rural Health –
“By incentivizing allied health professionals to settle and practice in rural regions, we can improve access to medical services for people living there. It means people won’t have to travel as far for medical services, improving access to care and health equity for people living in rural and remote areas across B.C.”
Kane Tse, president, Health Sciences Association (HSA) –
“I hear every day from CT technologists, lab technologists, radiation therapists, PET technologists, respiratory therapists and many other specialized health professionals struggling through dire shortages and crushing workload. On their behalf, HSA welcomes these initiatives, developed by Health Minister Adrian Dix and his team after many front-line meetings. We believe they will help increase health-science professional recruitment in rural communities and in urban facilities facing the most severe shortages.”
Stephanie Smith, president, BC General Employees’ Union (BCGEU) –
“Representing over 25,000 workers in B.C.’s health-care sector, the BCGEU welcomes the ministry’s initiatives to strengthen the long-term sustainability of our province’s public health-care system. The investments will ensure more people have access to health care in remote communities. It’s also critical that staff have the mental-health and professional-development supports that this will help deliver for workers across the province.”
Lynn Bueckert, interim secretary-business manager, Hospital Employee’s Union –
“We applaud the Ministry of Health’s expanding efforts to support public health-care services through the new measures announced today. These additional tools, along with the government’s recent expansion of the provincial rural-retention incentives program to attract and retain workers from across the health-care team and the health-care access program that has brought 7,000 more care aides into the system, will continue to have a positive impact on the working and caring conditions in B.C.’s hospitals and long-term care homes.”
Contact:
Ministry of Health
Media Relations
250 952-1887
BACKGROUNDER 2
What to know about retention and recruitment initiatives
The Province is investing up to $133.1 million in retention and recruitment of allied health and clinical support workforce.
This includes providing $60 million ($20 million each) to the Facilities Bargaining Association (FBA), Community Bargaining Association (CBA) and the Health Sciences Professionals Bargaining Association (HSPBA). The funding is intended to support members in the areas of mental wellness and professional development, aligned with the Health Human Resources Strategy and Allied Health Strategic Plan.
To support retention and career development, the Province is providing up to $15 million over three years for allied health clinical mentorship, peer support and transition-to-practice support for allied health new entrants, including new grads and internationally educated allied health professionals.
To continue supporting retention and recruitment efforts, the Province is investing up to $73.1 million in one-time funding, which will help with the unique staffing challenges faced in rural communities, as well as staffing difficulty to fill vacancies in urban and metro communities. The incentives will be retroactive to April 1, 2024, and are focused on:
- Expanding the Provincial Rural Retention Incentive (PRRI).
- This incentive provides up to $2,000 per quarter, pro-rated to productive hours, to health-care workers working in eligible rural and remote communities to a maximum of $8,000/year, from April 1, 2024, until March 31, 2025.
- This incentive was previously introduced as the Prototype Rural Retention Incentive by the Province in several rural communities in the north in 2021. The incentive was then expanded to several rural and remote communities in Interior Health and Island Health in 2022 and 2023 respectively.
- The PRRI will be expanded to include 56 new communities across the province, bringing the total number of communities supported to 74.
- All health-care workers are eligible for this program, provided they are employed in regular positions by a health authority or Providence Health Care (HAs/PHC) in eligible communities.
List of eligible communities include:
- Fraser Health:
- Hope
- Interior Health
- Fernie
- Elkford
- Sparwood
- Invermere
- Creston
- Golden
- Kootenay Lake
- Nelson
- Castlegar
- Arrow Lakes
- Keremeos
- Princeton
- Enderby
- Revelstoke
- 100 Mile House
- Clearwater
- Williams Lake
- Lillooet
- Lytton
- Ashcroft
- Cache Creek
- Clinton
- Merritt
- Grand Forks*
- Kettle Valley*
- Island Health
- Salt Spring
- Pender
- Galiano
- Mayne
- Saturna
- Bamfield
- Port Alberni
- Tofino
- Ucluelet
- Gold River
- Mt Waddington*
- Port Alice*
- Port Hardy*
- Port McNeill*
- Northern Health
- Stewart
- Houston
- Smithers
- Kitimat
- Atlin
- Dease Lake
- Terrace
- Quesnel
- Burns Lake
- Fort St. James
- Fraser Lake
- Granisle
- Vanderhoof
- Mackenzie
- McBride
- Valemount
- Daajing Giids*
- Masset*
- Port Clements*
- Prince Rupert*
- Port Edward*
- New Hazelton*
- Chetwynd*
- Dawson Creek*
- Tumbler Ridge*
- Fort St. John*
- Hudson’s Hope*
- Fort Nelson*
- Vancouver Coastal Health
- Bella Coola
- Bella Bella
- Powell River City
- qathet
- Gibsons
- Sechelt
*previously eligible for the incentives.
Recruitment incentives:
- Providing signing bonuses for eligible allied health workers who join GoHealth BC.
- GoHealth BC is B.C.’s innovative travel health-care service in partnership with Northern Health Authority (NHA), as part of B.C.’s Health Human Resources Strategy – Action 34.
- In March 2024, NHA and HSA signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to start hiring HSPBA members into GoHealth BC. Medical-lab technologists will be the first allied health profession to be launched in select communities.
- GoHealth BC deploys HA-employed travel staff to rural and remote communities across B.C.
- By providing staff with the opportunity to take flexible, short-term deployments, GoHealth BC provides an alternative to agency work and supports sites in B.C. to stay open and sufficiently staffed.
- Eligible health-care workers who join GoHealth BC between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025, in regular full-time or part-time positions are eligible for a recruitment incentive if they:
- join the GoHealth BC program from outside of B.C.; or
- are new to the public sector (have not been employed by a B.C. health authority or any other Health Employers Association of BC employer, or by a First Nation service provider or the First Nations Health Authority, or by a private/affiliate long-term care/assisted-living employer in B.C.) for a minimum of 12 months prior to joining GoHealth BC.
- Health-care workers who are employed by third-party staffing agencies are eligible for the incentive if they meet the eligibility criteria above.
- Eligible health-care workers will receive up to $10,000 in signing bonuses.
- Offering signing bonuses to work in certain rural and remote communities.
- To support the unique needs and challenges of working in remote communities, eligible health-care workers in priority occupations could receive up to $30,000 for filling identified high-needs vacancies in rural and remote communities.
- Starting April 1, 2024, priority occupation health-care workers filling eligible positions will receive up to $30,000 in Northern Health, and up to $20,000 in rural and remote areas in other health authorities.
- Eligible health-care workers will be required to sign a two-year return-of-service agreement.
- Offering signing bonuses for difficult-to-fill vacancies in urban and metro communities:
- The Province is focusing on staffing difficult-to-fill vacancies in urban and metro communities.
- Health-care workers in priority occupations may receive up to $15,000 should they choose to accept a permanent position in eligible difficult-to-fill or high-needs vacancies, starting April 1, 2024.
- Eligibility for the incentive focuses on health-care workers who are new to B.C.’s public-health system and those who may be returning to the system.
- Eligible health-care workers will be required to sign a two-year return-of-service agreement. The ministry may determine in consultation with the relevant bargaining associations and unions that additional occupations can be added to the list. Eligible occupations under the CBA, FBA and HSPBA currently include:
- Anesthesia assistant
- Biomedical engineering technologist
- Cardiac technologist
- Clinical counselor
- Community health worker
- Community support worker (mental health and addictions)
- Dietitian
- Environmental health officer
- Medical laboratory assistant
- Medical laboratory technologist
- Medical radiation technologists (magnetic resonance imaging technologist, radiation therapist, radiological technologist, nuclear medicine technologist, PET technologist, CT technologist)
- Occupational therapist
- Perfusionist
- Pharmacist
- Pharmacy technician
- Physiotherapist
- Psychologist
- Rehabilitation assistant
- Respiratory therapist
- Social worker
- Sonographer
- Speech language pathologist
Contact:
Ministry of Health
Media Relations
250 952-1887
BACKGROUNDER 3
What to know about training and licensing investments for allied health
To bolster and support the growth of the health workforce in B.C., the Province is investing up to $7.6 million to:
- Offer tuition credits for allied health students in high-demand programs.
- $2,000 per year in tuition credits for students enrolled in select undersubscribed programs at a public post-secondary institution.
- Programs include perfusionist, medical lab technologist, medical radiological technologist, magnetic resonance imaging technologist, nuclear medicine technologist, radiation therapist, respiratory therapist, environmental health officer, advanced care paramedics, primary care paramedics, clinical counsellors, biomedical engineering technologists and rehabilitation assistants.
- Additional $5,000 per year in tuition credits for Indigenous students enrolled in select programs at a public post-secondary institution.
- Programs include physiotherapist, occupational therapist, speech language pathologist and dietitian.
- $2,000 per year in tuition credits for students enrolled in select undersubscribed programs at a public post-secondary institution.
- Provide new graduates with bursaries for their licensing or certification exams.
- New allied health graduates will be provided with a $500 bursary to help cover the costs associated with their licensing or certification exams. This funding will be made available on an ongoing basis, retroactively applied to Jan. 1, 2023.
- Support access to employer-sponsored earn and learn programs.
- The ministry is funding the seat cost, tuition, books, fees and pre-requisites to support the education and training of combined lab and x-ray technologists in partnership with the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology and health authorities/Providence Health Care, which are funding an employee stipend and moving expenses.
- The ministry will support kinesiology graduates with an interest in public health-care settings through grants that support them to complete the Clinical Exercise Physiologist certification.
- Other high-demand employer-sponsored earn and learn programs are in development.
Contact:
Ministry of Health
Media Relations
250 952-1887