Within days of Donald Trump taking office, Brandy Frye watched medical papers begin being scrubbed, then neighbours were detained and orders were received to remove certain words in medical policy that the government didn’t find acceptable.
Frye is one of several health care workers who have immigrated from the United States following Trump’s re-election in 2024, in the effort to build a better life for her and her family.
Frye, now an emergency room nurse at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital after moving eight months ago, used to work in a leadership position at Providence Cedars-Sinai Tarzana Medical Center in southern California.
“I was at a leadership conference [on maternal morbidity mortality rates], this was around 10 days once he came into office, and one of my colleagues was going up to present on preeclampsia, so she started her whole presentation on the social determinants of health, and the CDC had taken that down,” Frye said. “They had taken all of those videos down, the site was down, as far as anything that was related to scientifically sound information.”
Back at the office, Frye said federal immigration officers began appearing to detain patients, and they recieved orders to edit hospital policy to remove references to topics such as “diversity” and “systemic racism.”
“Another organization I was a part of lost all its funding in a matter of two-three weeks. The monies that they were expecting to fund their next calender fiscal year were not given … I couldn’t believe what was happening.”
Frye began seriously considering Canada was an option, after viewing a LinkedIn post from a colleague, offering the opportunity to connect people to a health care recruiter in B.C. After doing more research and a successful job interview, she was offered a job in Nanaimo.
While her 13-year-old son was at first opposed, his stance changed after their neighbours, who had a child his age that he grew up with, were taken away one day by federal agents.
“People that I knew, that my kind knew growing up with their kids … the kids all grew up together, and this one woman saw Erma, my neighbour, removed from a graduation ceremony, and you know what [the other woman] said? ‘She must be illegal.’”
Frye said she decided to wait until after Canada’s 2025 federal election, as she saw what she viewed as similarities in Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and Trump, but after seeing voters shift toward the Liberals, she decided Canada was where she wanted to live.
Despite taking a significant pay cut, going from $200,000 USD salary to a third of that, Frye said she has the “exact same living style” and prefers working at Nanaimo Regional General Hospital.
“When you’re talking to a patient [in the U.S.] you want to make sure they have the correct coverage, you don’t want to mention [treatments] that might not be available to them … That’s not an issue here, everybody gets treated whether they can pay or can’t pay.”
While research in the U.S. on the social determinants of health, such as diet and environment, are censored and restricted, Frye said in B.C. it is integrated into practice, with considerations made on living conditions before discharge, such as the amount of stairs in a home, if the person has food at home or anyone to care for them.
“This is what patient and family centred care looks like. We always talk about that in the States … but then [American hospitals] discharge people out in the streets, there’s no support, the community does not come into the hospital, it is not part of the hospital.”
As for her son, Frye proudly boasted that he joined the Nanaimo White Rapids Swim Club and is competing in the B.C. Summer Games.
“The kids’ schools are even better.”
To heath care workers considering leaving their profession in the U.S., she had a message: “Before you quit nursing, before you quit the medical profession, try Canada.”
“Because a lot of the reason people burnout is because you feel helpless, you can’t help the people you care about, you go into a profession thinking you’re going to help people, to figure out that you’re not, you’re not doing anything: It’s painful.”