The province is trying to rein in runaway spending on private, for-profit nursing agencies that it says are draining resources away from the front lines of the public health system.
At a news conference Wednesday morning, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said a “cottage industry” of dozens of private agencies have sprung up in Manitoba in recent years following health-care cuts by the previous government.
The province is issuing a request for proposal to reduce the number of contracted agencies and set controls for the rates they charge, Asagwara said. It’s a step toward ensuring that the majority of health-care funding is directed to public front-line workers and their patients, the minister and registered psychiatric nurse said.
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The province is issuing a request for proposal to reduce the number of contracted agencies and set controls for the rates they charge, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said.
More than 70 agencies hold contracts with regional health authorities and health-care facilities, without any policies or controls over the rates they’re paid. Some are charging exorbitant fees — up to six times what the public sector pays — to fill staffing gaps in the public system, the minister said.
The private agencies have benefited from a situation where nurses had gone too long without a contract and left the public system. The ones who stayed faced staffing shortages and were worked mandatory overtime as a result, which led to burnout, Asagwara said. Some nurses left the public the system for private agencies that offered better work-life balance and profited from the public system exodus.
The plan to get private agency spending and operations under control was welcomed by the Manitoba Nurses Union.
“For too long we’ve seen resources drained into for-profit agencies,” union president Darlene Jackson said at the news conference. In the 2023-24 fiscal year, more than $77.5 million was spent on for-profit nursing agencies, 40 per cent more than the previous year.
“We’re tracking to be even higher than that in this fiscal year,” Jackson said. “We’re heading in a direction where we have facilities that are are totally staffed by agency nurses. We need to get nurses back into the public system.”
The health critic for the Progressive Conservatives expressed concern about pulling back on private agency use too soon.
“I think it’s important that government explore ways to reduce spending on agency nurses, but I’m concerned that they haven’t first done the work to address the issues that lead nurses to leave the public system in the first place,” Kathleen Cook said, noting she was looking forward to seeing the request for proposal when posted online.
“We hear from nurses all the time. They’re still reporting mandatory overtime, safety and security issues and a lack of flexibility in scheduling,” Cook said. “Those are the types of issues that lead them to go work for agencies.”
The MLA for Roblin said many rural agencies are still reliant on agency nurses.
“We can’t expect them to abruptly reduce or end agency nurses without first ensuring that they have adequate staffing in place in the public system.”
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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