Manitoba’s nurse float pool that aims to draw them away from private agencies and back to the public system with more flexibility and work-life balance is having some success.
Since the provincial nursing float pool launched in 2022, it has hired 160 nurses with more than two-thirds (69 per cent) from private agencies, Shared Health says. Of those, 144 are casual nurses and 16 work full time. New applications are coming in daily.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara expects it to get much bigger once the new health-care retention and recruitment office announced in April is up and running. The goal of the new government office is to help Manitoba meet its hiring target of 1,000 new health-care workers — including 210 nurses — in the public system this year.
“We’re just, really, getting started,” said Michele Lane, provincial lead for the health-care retention and recruitment office that has a dozen staff so far working at different sites in the province.
Mike Sudoma/Free Press
Michele Lane, provincial lead for the health-care retention and recruitment office, has been mandated to retain and recruit 100 doctors, 90 paramedics and 600 health-care aides this year.
“There is a lot of work to get this set up — for us to really understand where we need to reach out, how we reach out,” said the former executive director of the Fraser Health Authority in Surrey, B.C.
Lane was initially hired by the Manitoba government in February 2023 as the provincial lead for the health transformation management office. She’s a month into her new job.
“Some people are hard to find, and we’re doing more than just the nursing piece,” she said.
Her office is also tasked with helping to retain and recruit 100 doctors, 90 paramedics and 600 health-care aides this year. The province has budgeted $310 million for retention and recruitment and addressing staffing shortages.
“We’re not here to replace the employer but to help connect people who can’t find information readily, or their situation may be unique and a bit different than the outlined approach for things,” said Lane.
Doctors, nurses and paramedics may have to jump through some daunting regulatory and bureaucratic hoops in the hiring process. Lane said her office is there to help them navigate it.
“There is so much information out there — sometimes there’s so much, it’s hard to distill, to find where do I send my resume, what are the documents needed for relicensing?”
The office seeks to help retired health-care workers who want to return, those who have left the province and want to come back, and those who need help to work through Manitoba’s health-care hiring maze.
Lane said it’s the “early days” and can’t yet say how they plan to connect with potential hires who need help.
Manitoba’s float pool is being promoted across Shared Health and Health Careers Manitoba social media channels and at career fairs to reach nursing graduates, retired nurses and private agency nurses, Shared Health says.
MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES
Health minister Uzoma Asagwara says the provincial nursing float pool is working.
When the float pool was first established, its goal was to bring nurses back into the public system to work shifts in rural and northern communities that frequently face staffing challenges. It was developed with feedback from departed staff, including those who had left for agency work, who said the pool should offer flexibility in scheduling, benefits stability and opportunities for adventure and travel. There was also input from health-system managers, who identified areas in need of staffing and qualifications or experience.
The float pool is now seen as an important recruitment tool for nurses who’ve left the provincial system and offers them full-time, part-time and casual opportunities.
“Nurses working in the private, for-profit agencies are returning to the public system,” said Asagwara.
“We invested in improving capacity in the float pool and we’re seeing that be very successful. It’s growing every day.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.
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