Rally seeks to steer premiers away from for-profit health-care spending

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This article was published 11/07/2023 (837 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Premier Heather Stefanson defended the use of private health-care services by Manitoba and other provinces Tuesday, after more than 200 demonstrators held a public rally against it.

“I think the most important thing is we’re delivering health care within all our jurisdictions to those citizens who need it, when they need it,” the Council of the Federation chairperson and conference host said at a news conference at the Fort Garry Hotel at the end of Day 2 of the Canadian premiers’ three-day summer meeting.

During a noon-hour rally across Broadway from where the premiers had gathered, national and provincial leaders of unions representing health-care workers and support staff said the system is suffering — and provinces spending on for-profit care is making matters worse.

“The only ones that get better by having a privatized health-care system are rich investors and their thick wallets, and that has to stop,” Canadian Labour Congress president Bea Bruske said at the event organized by the Manitoba Health Coalition.

“Health-care workers work miracles to save lives — working double and triple overtime,” said Bruske. “Where is that kind of commitment from the premiers to save our health-care system?”

Health care was one of the main topics the premiers and territorial leaders discussed Tuesday, Stefanson said.

“We had a great discussion on health care within our own areas, about how we can work together and learn best practices from other jurisdictions, as well, ” she told reporters. “It was a positive day today.”

During the rally, the Canadian Health Coalition said provinces are outsourcing surgeries, diagnostic imaging and nursing to for-profit service providers — which threatens to create a two-tiered, U.S.-style system, where the ability to access care is based on wealth and not need.

“When you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you do is you stop digging — that is what premiers are doing sending more and more money to private health-care providers,” coalition president Steven Staples told the crowd. “It costs way more for these services in private, for-profit care.”

As provinces spend more on private agencies and services, the public health-care system has been starved to the point it struggles to attract and retain workers, said Linda Silas, president of the Canadian Federation of Nurses.

“We need to make health-care jobs the best in our community,” said Silas, who recalled a time when front-line jobs in the public system were coveted.

Now for-profit agencies are offering better pay, perks and working conditions, and workers are being drawn to them from the public system, she added.

“I don’t blame the workers… We’re going to work with the premiers to turn it around,” Silas told the crowd outside Union Centre.

Prior to Tuesday’s rally, Silas and the Manitoba Nurses Union met with the premiers to talk about solutions. They called on the provinces to enact legislation and regulations around safe hours of continuous work.

While airline pilots and truckers have a limited number of hours they’re allowed to be on the job, no such legislation exists for nurses, who may work up to 24 hours in a row, said MNU president Darlene Jackson.

“It’s for nurses’ health and safety and for the public’s safety,” Jackson said in an interview.

In their meeting with the premiers, she said they discussed the use of private agency nurses and a plan by Quebec to reduce, then eliminate, its reliance on for-profit nursing agencies.

“We need to do that, but we need to do that nationally,” Jackson said. “If one province does it, those private agencies just move to another province… I really hope that my words resonated with (Stefanson).”

The Manitoba premier wouldn’t say if the provinces would consider reducing reliance on private agency nurses.

“If there’s a better way to do things, we’ll listen,” Stefanson said. “We’re listening to stakeholders in our system right across the country.”

When asked what the premiers intend to do about health-care staffing shortages, burnout and provinces “poaching” nurses from other jurisdictions, she said the elected leaders agreed to have another meeting.

“We will be getting together… on how we can share best practices and take a collaborative approach when it comes to recruitment, retention and training of health-care professionals.”

She wouldn’t specify a meeting date, saying would be later this year.

“We’re not afraid to have those conversations — that’s why we’re listening to nurses about how we can do things better. We are taking action and we are getting results,” Stefanson said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca