The digital creator behind a viral social media gathering on Vancouver Island has issued an open invite to American health-care workers to relocate and alleviate staffing shortages.
Tod Maffin, whose Nanaimo Infusion event in April saw approximately 500 residents from the United States and Canada get together in the name of friendship, organized a similar gathering at Maffeo Sutton Park in Nanaimo on Saturday, Oct. 4, with an estimated 200 people attending, most clad in red and white.
Maffin told the News Bulletin the idea was inspired by the spring event and footage was recorded and will be used for a longer video that will be released in the coming weeks, with a top-secret, yet-to-be revealed, theme.
"My wife and I have been working with a bunch of local volunteers to help recruit doctors and nurses and other health care professionals … we noticed, which is a bit of a surprise to us, that a lot of people coming up were actually health care workers that were looking at the mid-Island as a place to live and so we repositioned the Infusion website [for] health care recruitment and it's been working," he said.
According to Maffin, nurses are flying into Nanaimo Sunday and Tuesday to start work at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital. While there have been complaints about roadblocks prospective nurses need to overcome, he said it is becoming easier.
"The red tape's being cut pretty aggressively by the province," said Maffin. "I think they've done a really good job in removing a lot of barriers. I think part of the problem is it's just a confusing patchwork of programs and application forms and immigration rules, and it's difficult for people to navigate, but from what I've seen, B.C. has been just killing it when it comes to cutting a lot of that red tape and getting people in."
Janice Perrino, Nanaimo city councillor and Nanaimo Regional Hospital District board chairperson, was in attendance and said difficulties in health-care staffing have been developing since the 1980s, compounded by a growing and aging population. The city and regional district are advocating for better facilities, which could assist in increasing the health-care workforce. She pointed to the catheterization lab and high-acuity and intensive care units at the hospital.
"We're a form of government, so we tax at the regional district level, and it's tough to ask people to pay extra, but those funds will help us to build this larger hospital that we need," Perrino said. "We haven't seen a substantial growth at [NRGH] since it was built 63 years ago, when the population was 25,000, so here we are over 100,000."
Maffin said there is a community of locals looking to help people from down south.
"We have a Discord server and it has 1,800 people in it and easily, two-thirds of them are American health care workers," said the organizer. "There's local nurses, local teachers in there, immigration consultants, local doctors that were American, that have moved up. All of them talking to each other, saying, 'Oh, here's what worked for me.'"
Brandy Frye, a nurse, recently moved up from the Los Angeles area and said she was drawn to Nanaimo partially from footage of Nanaimo Infusion. There was red tape to cut through, she said, but the expedited process for nurses made things easier.
"I started last week," she said. "I've felt nothing but welcome … I'm blown away by the friendliness of the community and the staff at the hospital."
For more information, go to https://engageq.notion.site/The-Nanaimo-Healthcare-Infusion-19b3dc1abb9480b9a501d697edccf661.
