Nurse union challenges depth of provincial float pool

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This article was published 28/11/2022 (513 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A one-year-old program incentivizing nurses to travel to communities struggling with staffing shortages and cover gaps in the health-care system has yet to add a nurse to its payroll, according to the Manitoba Nurses Union.

In October 2021, the MNU and Shared Health agreed to establish a provincial float pool and ratified the program in its new collective agreement.

The provincial health authority was to establish the pool and hire nurses who would take full- and part-time and casual assignments to address staffing shortages in the system and reduce the province’s reliance on private, for-profit agency nurses.

However, as of October, no nurses had been hired into the program, according to information provided to the union under access to information laws.

Records showing the number of positions posted and the number of positions filled for the provincial float pool do not exist, according to a freedom of information response from Shared Health.

“Rather than spend extraneous dollars outsourcing care provision in our public system, we need the government to invest that money (and eliminate the middle person) into bolstering Manitoba’s front line,” the union said in a statement Tuesday.

Opposition NDP Leader Wab Kinew raised the issue in question period and accused the Progressive Conservative government of failing to make good on its health-care commitments.

“They love to make announcements and put out press releases, but it’s never followed up with any action,” Kinew said. “Why does the premier refuse to hire even one nurse to the provincial float pool?”

Premier Heather Stefanson said the Opposition leader did not have his facts straight and applauded Health Minister Audrey Gordon for her efforts to engage nurses working in the community and local hospitals.

“There is nothing even remotely factual in what the leader of the Opposition just said,” Stefanson rebutted.

According to Shared Health, it is partnering with regional health authorities to introduce flexible working opportunities in rural and remote areas.

Earlier this year, the authority hired 16 nurses to the northern travel locum, which is a different program from the float pool, but also intended to address staffing shortages in the region.

More than 80 applications have been received for that program and interviews are ongoing.

“Work to establish float pool positions to support care in other regions is underway and we expect these positions to be posted in the new year,” a Shared Health spokesperson said in a statement.

According to Shared Health, regional health authorities have already spent $22.89 million on agency nurses between April and August 2022.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca