Ontario aims to attract more health-care workers with proposed legislation

The Ontario government has announced plans to allow health-care workers registered in other provinces and territories to practise immediately in Ontario.

The province has revealed new “as of right” rules to reduce bureaucratic delays in Ontario’s health care system. The government will introduce new legislative changes in February that will permit health-care professionals to immediately start working in Ontario without requiring them to register first with one of Ontario’s health regulatory colleges.

Premier Doug Ford commented, “With our new ‘As of Right’ rules, Ontario is the first province in Canada to allow health care workers from across the country to immediately start providing care. That’s the kind of innovative solution that will cut down unnecessary bureaucratic delays and help bring reinforcements to the frontlines of our health care system.”

Deputy premier and minister of health Sylvia Jones said that the government is working to make health care accessible for Ontarians by recruiting more health professionals and making it easier for them to start working in the province.

“A highly-skilled health care worker from British Columbia or Nova Scotia shouldn’t have to pause their career or face barriers to practice here in Ontario,” Jones added.

The government claimed that these proposed changes would mark the first step towards a pan-Canadian portable registration model, which is the first of its kind for health-care professionals in Canada.

The government is also planning to introduce legislation that will temporarily increase staffing levels by allowing health-care professionals to work outside their regular responsibilities or settings if they have the knowledge, skills, and judgment to do so. This law is part of the government’s effort to help hospitals and other health organizations increase staffing when they need to fill vacancies or manage periods of high patient volume, such as during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The province had also recently introduced other initiatives to recruit more health-care workers in Ontario, such as making it easier for internationally educated nurses to join Ontario’s workforce and investing in upskilling nurses working there.