Federal government to provide funding to speed up credentialing of 6,600 internationally educated health professionals

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The federal government has announced it will provide up to $86 million in funding to 15 organizations across Canada focused on increasing the amount of internationally educated health-care workers who are credentialed to work in Canada.

Through this funding, around 6,600 internationally educated health professionals (IEHPs) will be able to get their credentials, according to a press release Monday from the government.

The announcement builds on an existing federal commitment to help the struggling health-care system by making it easier for IEHPs to join the Canadian workforce.

"Honouring the professional credentials of newcomers is a compassionate and effective component of expanding Canada's workforce," Minister of Employment Randy Boissonnault said in the release. "The Foreign Credentials Recognition speeds up the accreditation for 6600 people, and is not only the right thing to do, but one of the best ways we can fill labour gaps, strengthen our healthcare system and grow our economy."

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The Foreign Credential Recognition Program provides funding not to individuals but to programs within provinces and territories that support the process of credentialing internationally educated professionals.

It's unclear if this 6,600 is the total number of additional IEHPs that the federal government will be seeking to get credentialed in Canada to live up to its existing commitments, or if it is just the number tied to this specific block of funding.

It's also unclear what the timeline for implementation is, so it's unknown when these health professionals might be approved to join the workforce in Canadian clinics, care homes and hospitals.

CTVNews.ca has reached out to the federal government for more details.

The 15 projects receiving funding will work to reduce barriers to IEHPs getting their credentials recognized in Canada, provide relevant Canadian work experience in targeted fields while supporting child care and transportation costs for IEHPs, and help workers move between different jurisdictions.

Some of the fields expected to benefit include nursing, dentistry, laboratory technicians, pharmacy and respiratory therapy.

"Health care workers deliver the care that Canadians need. By bringing in new workers and retaining those who are already there, we can help relieve the labour challenges in our health care system," Minister of Health Mark Holland said in the release. "This federal funding supports our government's work with provinces, territories, and stakeholders to have more health care workers enter Canada's workforce and to streamline that process. Together, this will improve our health care system so Canadians can get the care they need and deserve."

According to the release, there were a total of 90,000 unfilled positions in the health-care system in the second quarter of 2023.

Health-care professionals educated outside of Canada have long been identified as an under-utilized resource in Canada. A report published by the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions in 2022 highlighted that investing in internationally trained nurses could be one of the keys to solving a severe shortage of nurses.

The federal government has promised funding to speed up the process of credentialing IEHPs since 2022.

The 2022-23 budget included an additional $115 million over five years, starting that fiscal year, and $30 million ongoing in funding for the Foreign Credential Recognition Program, with the majority going to integrating health professionals, who had been educated internationally, into the Canadian workforce. This came in addition to the program's $27.3 million of annual base funding.

In February 2023, the federal government drew up plans to provide $198.6 billion over 10 years to aid health-care services from coast to coast, including $46.2 billion in new funding. Although premiers said at the time that the offer hadn't satisfied their demands, the funding announcement was followed by agreements between the feds and premiers to iron out the details of specific health-care funding.

One of the commitments in February's proposal was funding to speed up the honouring of IEHP credentials. This was reaffirmed in an October statement from governments after the fall Health Ministers' Meeting, which highlighted that they would reduce the wait time for IEHPs to join the workforce by striving to "provide licensure to qualified physicians and nurses within 90 days once source verification of credentials is confirmed and immigration approvals are in place."

This past summer, several provinces partnered with National Nursing Assessment Services on a new credentialing service for internationally educated nurses that promised to speed up the beginning of the licensing process by up to 11 weeks.