Premier says lab services may return to public system

WINNIPEG — Premier Wab Kinew says Manitoba may bring Dynacare’s diagnostic lab services back into the public system rather than continue to sign contracts with the for-profit company.

“Dynacare sucks. They’ve made an absolute mess of this situation,” the premier said Wednesday, the day the company’s 350 employees reported back to work after the labour board halted their strike after just one day.

Kinew first made the remark about Dynacare in a CBC radio interview Wednesday morning and added he is “not happy with them.”

Dynacare performs the majority of non-emergency blood and urine tests in the province.

Last year, the NDP government signed a five-year agreement with the company to expand services. The party heavily criticized the consolidation of labs and the for-profit delivery of essential health services while it was in opposition.

“You can blame the Tories for getting us into this situation,” the premier told reporters Wednesday.

“They’re the ones who privatized it,” he said. “Now it’s looking like it’s where, once you scramble the eggs, you can’t unscramble them.”

The premier acknowledged returning lab services to the public system would be a massive expense.

“Once you privatize something and it goes to the private sector, it becomes extraordinarily costly to bring it back into public hands,” the premier said.

“We still might do it. But Dynacare — get back to the table.”

When asked about the premier alleging that “Dynacare sucks,” the company issued a statement saying it shares Kinew’s “desire for a resolution” to the labour dispute.

“We acknowledge that this has been a difficult situation for patients and for the province,” it said in a prepared statement Wednesday.

“The fact is that Dynacare shares his commitment to ensuring Manitobans have reliable access to community-based laboratory services, and that is exactly what we are working to protect. We are looking for a sustainable collective agreement that will ensure those services.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, Dynacare had not returned to the table, said the Manitoba Health Care Professionals Association, which is the union for technicians and technologists at 22 sites.

They’ve been without a contract since March 31. The union says they make about 20 to 50 per cent less than their counterparts in the public system, and it’s seeking wage parity.

There is no essential services agreement in place in case of a labour disruption. Back in March, the two sides deemed it unnecessary, with the public system at hospitals and health centres handling emergency testing and performing diagnostic blood and urine tests.

One week before the union was set to go on strike Sept. 8, the province asked the Manitoba Labour Board to suspend the strike and determine whether such an agreement is needed. Labour Minister Malaya Marcelino’s application cited concerns that the work stoppage would put the health of Manitobans at risk.

After a hearing Tuesday, the labour board cut short the strike and ordered employees back to work Wednesday.

One patient who went to the company’s Marion Street location for routine bloodwork ordered by her doctor a couple of weeks ago expected a long wait, but left after under 20 minutes.

“It was really quick,” said Aisha Turk, 26, who was unaware of the brief strike.

Last week, when she looked into getting the bloodwork done, Dynacare had wait times upward of three hours, so she put it off until she had a day off, she said.

The labour board’s hearing to determine whether or not an essential services agreement is needed is set to begin today.

Union president Jason Linklater said there is a “massive amount of anger” toward the company over low wages and the government for interfering in the strike.

“If I was Dynacare, I’d be worried about people leaving,” he said Wednesday.

Noah Schulz of the Manitoba Health Coalition said the way the company and the province have handled the situation doesn’t bode well for the health-care system.

“It’s not a sustainable path forward — to force workers back to work, to keep accepting way less than parity, and expect that we’re going to be able to recruit and retain and keep a sustainable workforce that patients rely on,” Schulz said.

Linklater suggested the premier’s disparaging of the company and suggestion his government may nationalize Dynacare are attempts at “damage control.”

“The Kinew government is the one that signed a five-year contract with an American company that in his own words ‘sucks’ and made a mess for them. I don’t understand how or why you’d enter into a contract with an organization like that,” he said.

He said the government must repair the health-care system, which he said will take “lots of money and create a ton of work.”

Greg Mason, a University of Manitoba economics professor, said the government is in a bind because it has to rely on one private company for a health service it deems essential.

Dynacare bought all the smaller private labs in Winnipeg in 2018, eliminating the competition. The Tory government signed a contract with the company.

“The mistake they made is they basically awarded a private monopoly. That is never a good thing,” Mason said.

“The public monopoly has also got dangers to it,” with unions holding sway over government decisions, he said.

“A third option might be reverting to a number of private labs and then simply regulating them and testing them,” Mason said.

» Winnipeg Free Press