PMH ordered to cut spending on agency nurses
Implement 15% cut by March 2026: Manitoba Health
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/01/2025 (226 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
The Manitoba government has ordered Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) to reduce its spending on agency nurses by 15 per cent by March 2026, said Uzoma Asagwara, the province’s minister of health, seniors and long-term care.
The directive is “part of a system-wide effort to refocus funding on nurses in the public system,” Asagwara said in a news release on Wednesday.
“Prairie Mountain Health has consistently been dealt a bad hand,” Asagwara stated, blaming the former Progressive Conservative government for giving Prairie Mountain “little to no support” by cutting services, closing emergency rooms and firing nurses.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara is seen in a past interview. Asagwara has announced that Dauphin and Swan River will be among the communities to receive advanced-care paramedics. (File)
The 15 per cent reduction in spending that PMH has to meet within the next 13 months, is based on figures from the “2024/2025 utilization,” according to information supplied to the Sun by a Manitoba Health spokesperson.
It’s time to put a “hard stop on private-for-profit nursing agency over-spending and re-invest in the public system,” Asagwara said, adding: “Enough is enough. Our government is committed to working with all health regions to bring nurses back into the public system.”
PMH is working with the province to make sure there will be no gaps in care as it transitions from relying on agencies to finding enough staff to fill shifts, Treena Slate, PMH’s CEO, told the Sun.
“PMH supports and commends the work of the province in reducing reliance on agency nursing,” she said.
“In addition, reducing the number of agency organizations that we are engaged with, will assist in streamlining the administrative processes that we are confident can lead to efficiencies that contribute to reducing costs,” Slate wrote in an email to the Sun.
There are currently 28 private agency contracts in place within PMH, according to a Manitoba Health spokesperson.
That number is the highest when compared with the four other Regional Health Authorities (RHAs) that hold a total of 51 contracts.
PMH’s spending is in the millions. In 2023 and for the first 10 months of 2024, PMH spent $45.8 million on agency nurses. During the health region’s annual general meeting held Oct. 30, 2024, the deficit was pegged at $41 million, with the main drivers being agency nurses and overtime.
In December 2024, the government banned all health regions from signing new agreements with private agencies and issued a Request For Proposal (RFP) to reduce the number of contracted agencies operating in the province and to impose controls on the rates that they charge.
The deadline for proposals was Jan. 6, 2025, with 37 bids received for the five regions. The province will begin reviewing and evaluating proposals this week.
Slate said she is hopeful that the RFP will “help redirect nurses into the public system.”
Kathleen Cook, PC party health critic, is seen at a past news conference held at the Manitoba Legislative Building. Cook told the Sun on Wednesday that the NDP government needs to explain how it plans to reduce the reliance on agency nurses, and how its investing in recruiting and retaining public system nurses. (Winnipeg Free Press files)
As of October 2024, there was a 30.4 per cent nurse vacancy rate in PMH, which works out to 659 vacant positions out of a total of 2,167, said Darlene Jackson, the president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.
“More nurses returning to and choosing the public system, means we reduce the reliance on agency, but while we need to recruit, we must also invest time and money to make the public health-care system a place where people want to work,” Jackson wrote in an email to the Sun.
The NDP has failed to act, and as a result has pushed “many nurses to the brink, and until there is a solution to improve conditions, this crisis will only get worse,” said Kathleen Cook, the Progressive Conservative MLA for Roblin.
“This NDP government has allowed this overspending to reach historic levels, and a 15 per cent reduction won’t even cover the full scope of the damage done under their watch,” Cook stated.
“Rather than offering vague directives with no support, the NDP need to explain how they plan to reduce the reliance on agency nurses in the first place and make meaningful investments in recruiting and retaining public system nurses,” said Cook, who is also the opposition party’s health critic.
» mmcdougall@brandonsun.com
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