For-profit nursing needs oversight

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This article was published 23/09/2024 (389 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

For most Canadians, the ongoing health staffing crisis is marked by overrun emergency rooms, long wait times and dwindling access to care. For the for-profit nursing agencies, it’s been an economic boom to the tune of billions.

More than $1.5 billion of taxpayer dollars are projected to be spent on for-profit nursing agencies in the 2023-2024 fiscal year alone. Manitoba is on track to spend well over $60 million on for-profit agencies this year.

That critical public health funding did not go into ensuring you can get timely care in your local emergency room, or getting your dad off a surgery wait list, or adding more community health hubs with nurse practitioners to provide your family with primary care.Instead, millions went into the pockets of corporate stakeholders.

Unsafe working conditions and chronic unsafe staffing are at the heart of the health-care crisis — something this shortsighted spending has done nothing to solve. While we’ve been working to implement sustainable solutions to the crisis raging across the country, these agencies have been operating with very little oversight or accountability, undermin- ing efforts to stabilize the health workforce.

Private nursing agencies started as a short-term measure to fill rural and remote posts that can be hard to recruit but have now become an everyday part of filling staffing needs, even in large urban hospitals. Today there are at least 96 nurse staffing agencies operating in Manitoba, with new ones emerging each year in Canada. These estimates are based on the available data, but the real values are likely much higher.

The rise in for-profit agency spending has been rapid, increasing by 80 per cent over only three years in Manitoba. At least 765,000 agency hours are projected to be used this fiscal year — that’s the equivalent of almost 400 full-time nursing positions in our communities.

We can’t blame nurses for seeking alternatives to the deteriorating conditions that are pushing them out of the public health system and fuelling the province’s dire staffing crisis. For too long, nurses have faced an uphill battle for appropriate staffing, making do with less and less, often forgoing breaks, vacations and any semblance of work-life balance, while their wages pale in comparison.

We should all fear for the future of our public health-care systems when the workforce and funding that keep it running are being siphoned into for-profit companies. We cannot afford to keep slapping billion-dollar bandages on gaping wounds. For the sustainability of our health-care systems, Manitoba must immediately begin working towards ending our reliance on for-profit nursing agencies.

Given the rise in use, our governments must take radical action to not only retain the nurses we have in the system, but also attract those who left for agencies back into it. The Manitoba government is on the right track by working to have more oversight over private nursing agencies. But taxpayers need to see accountability and transparency about how our public health dollars are being spent.

Public health-care employers should be obligated to publicly report nursing agency use and the costs associated. We need standardized procedures for procuring agency services, including a vendor selection process that limits allowable costs and fixed terms. Agencies should be required to register and hold a licence to operate, allowing for necessary oversight and quality assurance.

Frankly, it is shocking they have been left without accountability for so long, and auditor general Tyson Shtykalo must investigate the use of these for-profit agencies. Our public health-care dollars need to be put towards our communities and ensuring we all have access to the care we need when we need it.

Nurses and health care workers in Manitoba have long been stepping up with solutions to the crisis in care, and it is past time for our government to step up and implement them.

» Linda Silas is the president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions, and Darlene Jackson is the president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.