B.C. hires more than 400 U.S. health-care workers in 1-year recruitment blitz

March 18, 2026

Five months ago, Dr. Anne Herdman Royal began a new job in Canada. Driven out of the United States by a shifting political landscape and a mass shooting at the hospital where she worked in Tulsa, Okla., it had become a country she no longer wanted to call home.

“I was horrified,” she said, recalling the day four people were killed, including two fellow doctors. “I came home from the lockdown and told my husband, ‘We have to get out of here.'”

The next day, Herdman Royal applied to work in B.C. Last fall, she moved her family to Nanaimo to start a new life. She’s one of hundreds of American health professionals that have made a similar move in recent months.

Government data provided to CBC News reveals B.C. has hired 414 health-care workers since it launched a recruitment campaign in the U.S. exactly one year ago.

The numbers from B.C.’s Ministry of Health show 89 doctors, 42 nurse practitioners, 260 nurses and 23 allied health professionals from the U.S. accepted jobs in the province between March 2025 and January 2026.