The Provincial Rural Retention Incentive (PRRI) has been extended—but Minister of Health Josie Osborne has remained completely silent on the exclusion of nurses in Cranbrook and Kimberley.

Despite clearly meeting the rural criteria laid out by the Ministry, nurses in our communities continue to be denied access to the incentive. In fact, we meet the criteria so well that other healthcare professionals working in Cranbrook and Kimberley are already receiving PRRI payments. Yet somehow, the nurses holding the front lines—on understaffed wards, in overcrowded ERs, and in community programs stretched beyond capacity—are left out.

Instead of investing in the retention of experienced rural nurses, the Ministry is pouring money into flashy recruitment campaigns—like branded coffee trucks being sent across the U.S. in hopes of luring American nurses to British Columbia. It's a slap in the face to the professionals who are already here, already committed, and already exhausted.

Recruitment without retention is a revolving door. The PRRI was designed to help stabilize rural healthcare by encouraging both. It’s time the Ministry applied its own policies consistently.

Minister Osborne, we are still waiting for answers.

Keep sharing the petition. Keep raising your voices. We will not stop until rural nurses in Cranbrook and Kimberley get the fairness and recognition they deserve.