Hello everybody, new to the site!

Im an Irish nurse planning to move to British Columbia in January, I have already obtained a 1 year working holiday visa and to the best of my knowledge it is quite easy to obtain a second year working holiday visa.

I realise that you have to register with the CRNBC but does anybody know if you can work as a nurse on the working holiday visa? its just that I dont want to pay the large registration fee only to realise that you are not eligable on that visa.

Any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated and thanks in advance

Until you have met requirements with the college of RN and in a lot of cases take some form of assessment you can't work as a nurse and the process can take several months to a year to meet requirements. A lot will depend on your transcripts and when trained.

I see no reason why you can't work as a nurse on 1 year working visa as long as you have eligibility to sit CRNE or passed CRNE as that is what employers generally look for. Also not 100% sure what the job situation is like in BC but employers may be looking for something longer than 1 year

cool, thanks a mill,
are there many nurses working through agencies in canada? cheers silverdragon102

One thing to note is that you'll need a medical to work as a nurse, so factor in another £250-300 or so for that, and also extra time for processing the visa application.

Good luck.

If you're a nurse and you have any questions about moving to British Columbia, there's an organization called Health Match BC which can help you (www.healthmatchbc.org). They would likely know if you can work as a nurse on a working holiday visa. Health Match BC assists nurses with immigration, licensing, and finding a job, so if you need assistance with any of these, I'd recommend registering with them. They are a free service funded by the Government of British Columbia, Canada.

They are extremely frustrating in that they do not communicate effecively with people. They are meant to confirm receipt of your application and fail to do so. Do things just happen at a much slower pace in Canada? 10 weeks, they have taken the money, but no correspondance whatsoever.