Health minister accuses nurses college of driving away new recruits

Manitoba’s health minister says the regulatory body for nursing is blocking internationally educated nurses who want to practise in the province and driving them away.

“What we’re hearing from nurses — not just IENs but across the board — is that the college continues to be a barrier to nurses successfully joining the front lines and they’re leaving Manitoba as a result, or not considering Manitoba as an option,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said late Thursday.

The health minister was defending their directive that the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba stop requiring “labour mobility applicants” have 450 hours of nursing experience in Canada over the past two years or 1,125 hours over the past five years.

In 2022, the Progressive Conservative government directed the college to stop requiring out-of-province applicants have recent Canadian experience. The college said it then tracked a significant increase in complaints about nursing incompetence linked to labour mobility applicants, and that two patients have died as a result.

It cited complaints about a lack of nursing knowledge, skill and judgment, the inability to take or interpret vital signs, perform a health assessment, safely administer medication or prioritize patient care. In December, the college reinstated the requirement for nurses to have recent Canadian experience.

Asagwara ordered the college to stop, saying it was breaking internal trade laws, including the Canadian Free Trade Agreement and the New West Partnership Trade Agreement’s labour mobility rules, and legislation requiring regulated professions to ensure their registration practices comply with obligations of a domestic trade agreement.

College registrar Deb Elias said Wednesday the province is putting labour mobility and its support for interprovincial free trade ahead of patient safety and lives.

The health minister — who is also a registered psychiatric nurse — said the college’s complaints have been taken “very seriously”and “immediate steps” were taken to keep patients safe. The province is working with regional health authorities and employers to make sure there are pathways for internationally educated nurses to get more support or resources so they can succeed as a nurse or elsewhere on the front line, said Asagwara.

The minister said the college is also rejecting qualified nurses.

“We’ve heard from a number of nurses in the U.S., nurse academics, federal nurses who’ve been trying to get licensed in Manitoba to practise in nursing stations. We’ve heard of cases where nurses who practised in Manitoba for over 30 years — in one case, a nurse who practised for 35 years and was short one hour in her recency was denied a licence to return to the front lines as a recently retired nurse.”

Asagwara said the health department’s recruitment and retention office is triaging “literally dozens of nurses who’ve come to us because they have not been supported by the college.”

The minister said Manitoba has to be able to pivot.

“We have to be able to evolve. The college, I know, has historically been unwilling to do so. That’s not the landscape of health care in Canada anymore,” Asagawara said.

“If Manitoba wants to be competitive in the health care staffing market, we have to be willing to adapt and evolve and meet the growing needs and economic realities.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca