East Kootenay nurses call for expansion of rural nurse incentive

Some nurses in the East Kootenays are calling on the province to expand its rural nursing incentive program to include the B.C. communities of Kimberley and Cranbrook.

Denise Nelson is a B.C. Nurses Union interim regional council member and a registered nurse in Kimberley, B.C., about 240 kilometres east of Kelowna. There, she's not eligible for the incentive. 

"We're already working short," Nelson told Daybreak South. "I'm concerned that nurses are going to leave Cranbrook and Kimberley and move to the outlying facilities in order to take the incentive."

Since the province expanded the program earlier this year, the Provincial Rural Retention Incentive (PRRI) offers nurses up to $8,000 to work in 74 rural communities across B.C. When the province announced the program, it said in a news release the incentive was meant to staff difficult-to-fill vacancies in rural health care.

But critics say the incentive is not a long-term solution with many other rural communities falling through the gaps. 

The criticism comes as rural hospitals grapple with persistent emergency room closures and days-long pauses in service due to staffing issues. 

B.C.'s Health Minister Adrian Dix told CBC News the province is considering the nurses' request. 

"We take these requests very seriously," he said. "But this particular initiative is designed to deal with a specific problem in rural communities."

The province first launched the incentive program in 2021 to serve rural northern communities. Now, it offers $2,000 per quarter to nurses for a maximum of one year. The province announced its expansion in April as part of a $155.7 million investment into rural health care. 

"This particular [incentive] was intended for the smallest communities in British Columbia," Dix said. He said Cranbrook and Kimberley are eligible for other incentive programs, including signing bonuses for other difficult-to-fill vacancies. 

According to the ministry's website, last year, more than 6,500 nurses registered to work in the province. 

Paul Adams, executive director of the B.C. Rural Health Network, says the incentive program is not a long-term solution to the lack of health care staff in rural communities. 

"It is not solving our problem," he said. "It enhances our ability to recruit for the short term, but we need to fix the system for the long term.

He's calling on the province to make changes, including expanding the services each rural health practitioner can deliver and separating the governance of rural and urban health care.

"We have very unique challenges and needs within rural communities and remote communities," he said. "One size doesn't fit all."

Nelson is petitioning in Cranbrook and Kimberley to have the rural incentive program available in those communities. 

Cranbrook is home to the East Kootenay Regional Hospital, a major health-care centre in the region, which serves 85,000 people.

"Nursing, and health care in general, really is crumbling," Nelson said. "We have to work on bringing nurses to B.C. and health-care workers."