Manitoba vowing to crack down on overuse, lack of scrutiny by private health agencies
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Posted December 4, 2024 2:24 pm.
Last Updated December 4, 2024 3:20 pm.
The Government of Manitoba says private nursing agencies focused on profit, as opposed to patients, are no longer welcome in the province.
That was the message delivered by Minister of Health and Seniors Uzoma Asagwara on Wednesday morning, claiming Manitobans may be getting ripped off.
“This RFP will change that,” they said.
The minister says Manitoba will now be issuing requests for proposals (RFPs) to eventually replace hundreds of contracts currently standing with more than 70 for-profit agencies, who they say operated without much scrutiny under the previous government.
“We have to get a handle on agencies. We have to get a handle on agencies that are charging Manitobans for the healthcare they deserve,” Asagwara said, stressing the RFP will require the agencies to play by the province’s rules.
CityNews reached out to the previous government in the PC Party of Manitoba for comment on Wednesday, but a response was not immediately received.
The minister, flanked by Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses’ Union (MNU) and Tuxedo MLA Carla Compton, a nurse by trade, says they hope the restrictions will help bring nurses back who departed for private agencies – either for more money, better work life balance or due to disrespect from the PCs.
The move, they say, has been made after close consultations with health-care stakeholders.
“It’s the responsible thing to do when it comes to our books and it’s the right thing to do when it comes to patient care,” Asagwara said. “We’re bringing the system back to the principle that the further away that you get away from the bedside, the worse the decision-making tends to become, and we’re putting the emphasis back on the frontlines.”
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Jackson said redirecting funds away from the for-profit sector back to the public system is critical when it comes to recruitment and better patient care, saying for too long profit has been the priority of some of these agencies, on which dependence has grown.
“We clearly are heading in the direction where we have facilities that are totally staffed by agency nurses,” Jackson said. “And we really need to get nurses back into the public system.”
The MNU presidents says the new RFPs will help bring nurses back to the public’s bedside, saying private agencies are getting too much from the public sector coffers.
“In the 2023-24 fiscal year, public sector employers spent $77.5 million, which is 40 per cent more than the previous fiscal year. And from our numbers we’re seeing, we’re tracking to be even higher than that in this fiscal year,” said Jackson. “So those numbers every year are growing by absolutely unacceptable percentages.”
Minister Asagwara noted the RFP is being issued right away, but the system will be something that takes time to fix, adding the aim of the change is to both fix the culture around agency use in the province while also curbing cash flow away from the public system.