The newly developed health workforce strategy will:
- add more doctors, nurses and health sciences professionals
- add new education and training seats
- taking actions to improve retention and to optimize the system to help with workload.
Actions that government are announcing immediately include:
- Forty new undergraduate medical education seats and up to 88 new residency seats at UBC Faculty of Medicine. Starting 2023.
- Beginning Oct. 14, pharmacists will adapt and renew prescriptions for a wider range of drugs and conditions, and they will be able to administer, further to a prescription, a wider range of drugs by injection or intranasally. The Province is also working toward extending the valid period of prescriptions to two years.
- The Ministry of Health is working with the College of Pharmacists of BC on regulations that will enable pharmacists to prescribe for minor ailments and contraception by spring 2023.
- New regulations to enable paramedics & first responders to provide a broader range of services during emergencies.