Manitoba cuts ties with dozens of private nursing agencies to reduce reliance on firms

A nurse is warning that rural hospitals may have an even harder time filling shifts in the new year as a Manitoba government agency is ending its relationships with dozens of companies that supply its health-care system with nurses.

Manitoba will work with only four private agencies to fill vacant shifts at public health-care facilities starting Jan. 15. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a recent interview that the health care system is a steep decline compared to the approximately 80 companies currently contracted.

Four companies – Aristocrat class Intellicare Staffing, Integra Health, Bayshore Healthcare, Auguri Healthcare – Won the right to work in Manitoba through a competitive bidding process, Shared Health. Who coordinates health care delivery In the province, confirmed.

The province is counting on nurses already working for dozens of private agencies to work with either the four chosen agencies or preferably the public system, the minister said, but nurses from one agency don’t share the same optimism.

Melissa Dupont said she’s heard from agency nurses like her who are planning to leave Manitoba because of the changes.

Vacancies will get worse: Nurse

“Even with the 70 agencies we have, we can’t meet all the needs, so I’m working 16-hour shifts,” DuPont said.

“So how do they think reducing it to four (agencies) will make it better?”

Asagwara said Manitoba has fostered a “cottage industry” in recent years with the emergence of dozens of private, for-profit agencies that are squeezing the public system for high salaries, travel fees and millions of dollars per day.

The minister said the new policies will give the province more control by dramatically reducing the number of agencies as well as controlling their operations and controlling costs.

“We’ve heard stories of (private) nurses who didn’t have the right skills and were showing up to a site who were unable to actually provide care because they weren’t appropriately matched,” Asagwara said.

“This approach is ensuring that we’ve got vetted agencies whose approach and values ​​are consistent with the standards of care we should expect from Manitobans.”

DuPont said there are many reputable, home-grown agencies in the province, including the Happy Nursing Agency for which she works, and most of the agencies selected now are from outside the province — and are “chasing” nurses to recruit them.

Calls are coming day and night. “I had a girlfriend like, ‘I have to tell them to leave me alone,'” she said.

Asagwara has made no secret of his desire to transfer private agency nurses to the public system, and he says the new plan is already having the desired effect.

Asagawa said in December that about 200 people have applied in recent weeks to become traveling nurses in the public system’s float pools — the government’s answer to private nursing agencies — with about 500 people already in the float pools and 80 on board. The government also says it has hired a total of 1,200 new nurses over the past two years.

“Nurses want to work in the public system – they just want a competitive package,” Asagwara said, calling the float pool an attractive part of that proposal.

Asagwara added Prairie Mountain Health, which was Instructed to cut private nurse expenses There has been a cost reduction of 14 per cent so far, up to 15 per cent by March 2026.

However, DuPont said the salaries in the public system are not high enough to tempt her back and she did not want to move to one of the four agencies because it would mean leaving the company she loved and losing her flexibility.

She and her partner plan to travel the country in a camper early this summer, picking up nursing shifts along the way. She is already planning to apply for contingent positions.

Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, said many of the nurses going into the public system’s float pools are coming from private agencies.

She’s encouraged by the cuts to private agencies, according to Shared Health, as the province’s spending on private nursing agencies is increasing year-over-year, from $26.9 million in 2020-21 to $80 million in 2024-25.

“if we’If you’re going to spend money, I’d rather it be spent on our public health care system rather than lining the pockets of some private, for-profit agency,” Jackson said.

Some other new rules affecting private agencies include hiring nurses directly instead of relying on informal agreements.

“This increases accountability for training, licensure and ensuring they have the appropriate qualifications and experience for the setting,” the Shared Health statement said.

Under the new arrangement, each regional health authority has three contracted private nursing agencies.

The apex agency of each RHA will be

When there is a vacancy to fill, the RHA will first contact the primary agency, then move down the list to secondary and tertiary agencies until the shift is filled.

For urgent or emergency shifts, all three agencies will be contacted simultaneously.

For example, Elite IntelliCare Staffing – the only one of four agencies based in Manitoba – has top billing filling vacancies at Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and Southern Health, while it has secondary options at Interlake-Eastern and Prairie Mountain and tertiary options at Northern Health.

A nurse will only be allowed to work for one agency at a time, and thus may be excluded from certain areas. For example, a nurse working at Auguri Healthcare will have her first shift in Prairie Mountain and will not be able to work in Winnipeg.

Shared Health did not respond to further questions about the new contracts on Monday.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook worries that a change among the four contracted agencies would be “too chaotic.”

“When there is a major change in the way we work in health care, especially when it comes to staffing, there is the potential for disruption,” Cook said. Parallels with last year’s failed rollout of a centralized scheduling system for home care that led to Increase in canceled appointments,

“And I certainly hope the current government has a plan and a contingency plan to mitigate this. Based on the experience of home care, I’m not convinced.”