Northern Health close to hiring goal of 100 new nurses

Northern Health is making progress on its pledge to fill 100 nursing positions by the end of March.

Communications officer Jonathan Dyck says they’re most of the way to meeting that goal.

“We have posted regular positions in a number of areas across Northern Health and a number of these positions are in what we would classify as difficult to fill areas including specialty nurses. We have filled 70% of the positions”

The hiring push it part of a province-wide initiative to fill more than 1600 nursing positions across BC.

Dyck says Northern Health will continue to do its part to meet the ambitious target.

“We will continue to work hard to recruit nurses and other medical professionals to Northern BC and will continue to work toward that goal, working of course in collaboration with BC Health and the BC Nurses Union.”

With less than 2 weeks remaining in the month and nearly ⅓ of the 100 positions still vacant, Dyck says they’re employing a variety of strategies to fill the gaps.

“Those strategies include advance hirings of new grads to allow current staff to undergo training in specialty areas, incentive programs for return of service agreements in rural and remote communities, continuing to work with post-secondary institutions to recruit graduates to stay in the north and collaboration with the BCNU on recruitment activities.”

One focus of the recruitment campaign is increasing the number of nurses in the province working full time. According to the BC Nurses Union, nearly 7,000 of its nurses are casuals. The union says it has called on those casuals to apply for full time positions.