PMH spending on private nurses rises

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This article was published 29/06/2023 (1009 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Prairie Mountain Health spent approximately $24.4 million to hire nurses from private agencies between Aug. 1, 2022 and Feb. 28, 2023, according to documents obtained by the Manitoba NDP through a freedom of information request.

The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union said in a Thursday interview she wonders why that money is being spent to hire more expensive labour from private agencies instead of being put into the public system.

“If we’re spending $24 million in seven months on agency (nurses), why isn’t that money being poured into the public health system to retain nurses, to get nurses back in the public health system?” president Darlene Jackson said.

The document obtained by the NDP lists how much money was spent on agency nurses by month and facility. The $24,441,783.06 spent over those seven months represents an average of approximately $3.5 million per month.

Of the facilities in the health region hiring private nurses, Dauphin Regional Health Centre spent the most over that timeframe at approximately $2.6 million.

The next three highest spenders were all in Swan River, with the Swan River Hospital spending approximately $2 million, the Swan River Health Centre approximately $1.85 million and Swan River Valley Personal Care Home approximately $1.6 million.

Brandon’s highest-spending facility was Fairview Personal Care Home, which spent approximately $1.1 million on agency nurses.

In its annual general meeting last October, Prairie Mountain Health reported that it had spent $23.1 million on agency nurses over the 12 months of its 2021-22 fiscal year. That would represent an average monthly spend of $1.925 million on agency nurses that year.

At the time, PMH CEO Brian Schoonbaert said the money spent on agency nurses was due to staffing vacancies as well as shortages due to nurses being recommended to take holiday time last summer to prevent burnout.

In a Thursday phone interview, Schoonbaert said the biggest factor for the increase in agency costs is that, after having to work so much overtime during the COVID-19 pandemic, staff haven’t been as willing to accept extra hours when offered the chance.

To avoid a lack of service, that means the region has to hire staff from private agencies.

While some areas have stabilized their staffing situations, some locations like Swan River and Dauphin have not. Because of their distance from Winnipeg, where a lot of agency nurses are based, the region has to pay for not only their salaries, but their accommodations and travel expenses.

Schoonbaert said the salary difference between public and private nurses isn’t too big when you factor in that private nurses aren’t having their benefits covered by the public — it’s those additional expenses that are creating the cost gap.

He said Prairie Mountain Health hadn’t “made great strides there” when asked if recent efforts by the province to improve the retention and recruitment of health-care workers.

Earlier this week, the province announced it was bringing more than 300 health-care workers to Manitoba from the Philippines. Of those, 64 are earmarked for PMH. Schoonbaert said some of those workers would be directed to Swan River and Neepawa.

Though the use of agency nurses is necessary to maintain services in the present day, the CEO said he expected more nurses to become available to the public system in the future and eventually get back to the staffing situation that existed before the pandemic.

Last August, the Winnipeg Free Press quoted Health Minister Audrey Gordon assaying she was looking to reduce the amount spent on private nurses and grow the number of nurses in the public sector after the province reported spending more than $40 million to hire from agencies in the previous fiscal year.

In response to an interview request sent to Gordon’s office, her press secretary, Eleni Hague, sent a statement saying staffing shortages are not unique to Manitoba.

The statement pointed out the government had announced last week that 55 nurses had been hired for a province-wide float pool that will bring nurses to work shifts in rural and northern communities.

It also referenced an announcement about the recruited Filipino workers and $123 million in incentives from the Health Human Resource Action Plan to help retain, train and recruit nurses.

However, the statement did not address why the amount spent on agency nurses appears to have risen significantly in Prairie Mountain Health.

Jackson said the money spent on hiring private nurses is “skyrocketing” across all of Manitoba’s health regions.

Currently in Manitoba, Jackson said there are more than 2,800 vacancies for nursing positions. She said the province is seeing a steady stream of nurses leaving for positions at agencies because of the extra flexibility those positions offer.

“There’s lots and lots of ability to have a work-life balance when you work for an agency,” she said. “You can work when you want to work. You get to talk about where you will work. That flexibility is not there in the public system right now.”

One of the big reasons for these departures, she said, is a perceived lack of respect for health-care workers, especially after their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the province announced an incentive that would pay nurses $10,000 to delay their retirement by two years. It was supposed to provide $5,000 after the first six months and the rest after the final 18 months of the agreement.

According to Jackson, payments have yet to go out to those who have reached the six-month mark.

Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew told the Sun on Thursday that Gordon wasn’t living up to her word after saying she would look to reduce agency spending.

“Because of the increase year-over-year — more than 50 per cent — it’s just another sign of how short-staffed we are in Prairie Mountain Health,” Kinew said.

“And in Brandon and Dauphin in particular, I would say, that’s having an impact on patients. At the end of the day, it’s patients who bear the brunt of these sorts of examples of mismanagement in health care.”

Despite efforts by the current government to attract and retain nurses, Kinew said these figures show they’re not enough to make up for cuts.

In early May, the NDP released a plan to improve rural health care heading into this fall’s provincial election. In that plan, the party said it would “offer incentives to allied health professionals, nurses and nurse practitioners to work in rural communities.”

On Thursday, Kinew said that’s still part of the plan, but his party would also look to work with post-secondary institutions to help internationally trained workers more easily get Canadian credentials and to train more health-care professionals in Manitoba.

» cslark@brandonsun.com

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