BRANDON — Premier Wab Kinew has promised to tighten standards for private nursing agencies and continue to improve working conditions for nurses who provide care in the public system.
The premier spoke to an audience of 500 people at a Brandon Chamber of Commerce luncheon Thursday. He opened his remarks by commenting about the reopening of the emergency department at the Carberry Health Centre before segueing into a discussion of how his government needs to make conditions better for health workers, especially nurses.
“Nurses have been very clear about what some of their frustrations are on the front lines,” Kinew said, listing mandatory overtime, inflexible scheduling, nurse-to-patient ratios, working conditions, violence in the workplace and dealing with the effects of addictions and mental-health crises.
Matt Goerzen/The Brandon Sun
Brandon Chamber of Commerce president Lois Ruston looks on as Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew speaksduring a question and answer session following his State of the Province speech in Brandon, Thursday.
Kinew acknowledged many nurses have moved out of the public system to private agencies to find a better work/life balance.
It means Manitoba pays much more to staff health facilities with private nurses: $56 million in the first three quarters of the 2023-24 fiscal year.
While Manitoba has 75 nursing agencies, British Columbia, which has four times the population, only has 19, the premier said.
He said his government has heard concerns about agency nursing — not just related to staffing, but safety as well. He told an anecdote about an agency nurse sleeping in their car between shifts at different facilities.
While he said the government can’t implement any mandates due to the necessity of agency nurses, Manitoba needs to provide incentives to draw them back from the private sector.
“We’re putting out a request for proposals for nursing agencies to be validated by the provincial government to work with the service delivery organizations in our province,” Kinew said.
“What that is going to do is allow greater oversight and what it means for you as a patient (is) quality. We’ll be able to ensure that there are standards in place, that there are health and safety regulations being put into place.”
After his speech, Kinew told reporters that tightening standards would help to ensure that agency nurses have the right specialization for the facilities in which they work.
Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson expressed support for Kinew’s announcement.
“Our MNU nurses must be vetted and validated to ensure that they are in compliance with the provincial and regulatory standards,” Jackson said.
“To hold private, for-profit agency companies to the same standard as those employed in our universal public health system, in order to provide patient care to an expected standard, is not only reasonable, but necessary.”
She said she’s “pleased to see the new government acting to address the advantages previously afforded to private agency companies operating at a profit and receiving significant funds from the public system.”
At the Manitoba Federation of Labour convention in Brandon last week, delegates voted in favour of the MFL and the Manitoba Nurses Union to lobby the province to regulate agency nursing.
—Brandon Sun