With 1,000 new long-term care beds in its health-care plans, Nova Scotia is looking to recruit health-care workers from other provinces, and P.E.I. seems to be a particular target.

The Prescription Nova Scotia brochure is filled with enticing pictures of the Nova Scotia lifestyle.

Prince Edward Island households, for example, recently received a postcard with their daily newspaper, pointing them to a website called Prescription Nova Scotia. It's part of a strategy by that province to recruit 500 new nurses, as well as more doctors and continuing care assistants.

"We're also doing things like ads on the exterior of buses and in the interiors of buses, lots of online advertising, ads in professional journals, and a direct marketing piece that we're sending out to about 30,000 households across Canada with health-care providers in them," Michelle Perry, a spokeswoman for the Nova Scotia Department of Health, told CBC News Friday.

Perry said Nova Scotia is offering to pay 70 per cent of the tuition of anyone who wants to train as a continuing care assistant in that province, and will pay relocation costs for nurses willing to move there.

The national advertising campaign is costing the province $700,000.

P.E.I. also launching campaign

P.E.I. is not taking Nova Scotia's plans to staff new beds with Islanders lying down, and will soon launch its own campaign.

Patty Devine, who is in charge of the P.E.I. Department of Health's new recruitment secretariat, acknowledged the Island will not have the resources Nova Scotia has devoted its campaign.

"We'll be looking at all that and deciding in a comprehensive strategy what works for us here," she said.

"What is the best bang for your buck; how are you going to reach the people you need to reach?"

Perry said Nova Scotia has had a significant increase in website traffic since it started its campaign, but she wasn't sure whether any health-care workers had been lured to the province yet.