Float nurses providing much-needed relief in stressed health-care system

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This article was published 07/01/2024 (611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The complement of nurses working in Manitoba’s provincial float pool program has more than doubled since May, signaling a step forward in relief efforts for beleaguered health-care workers in remote and rural communities.

“It’s taken some time to get it up and running, but we are up and running,” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said by phone last week.

“There is lots of freedom and work-life balance when you’re working for a private agency, so we are really trying to emulate that within the public system.”

Nurses hired into the pool travel to communities struggling with staffing shortages and cover gaps in the health-care system. The program includes full- and part-time and casual assignments, primarily in rural and remote health-care facilities.

Provincial officials promised to establish the float pool as part of a collective bargaining agreement signed with the MNU in October 2021.

The move came in an effort to compete with, and reduce, the public health-care system’s reliance on for-profit agencies, which hire nurses privately and offer the same service at a significant cost to taxpayers.

Since its launch, the province has hired 113 nurses to staff the float pool — up from 55 last May. Four nurses work full-time, while the remaining are assigned to casual shifts. Health officials are currently processing an additional 300 applicants and recruitment activities are ongoing, a provincial spokesperson said via email.

“As the provincial float pool expands, it will further reduce our reliance on agency staffing and provide more stable nursing resources in high-needs areas of Manitoba,” the province said.

Funding for float pool staffed shifts is supported through existing vacant positions within the health region or facility where the shift is worked.

In 2023, provincial float nurses logged a cumulative 25,552 hours across Manitoba, the spokesperson said.

While the numbers are a positive sign, the public program has a long way to go before it can match the capacity of private agencies.

In July, Shared Health announced the provincial government spent $60 million on private nurses during the 2022-23 fiscal year. The expense bought approximately 296,000 hours of nursing care.

The spending highlighted what was a slow start for the provincial pool, which hired no nurses in the first year it operated.

Some nurses working in the public sector are drawn to private agencies because they offer high pay and flexible schedules. The prominence of such agencies has exacerbated staff shortages within the public system, Jackson said.

“It is a bit of an effort to try and stop nurses from leaving the public system and going to the private,” she said. “Those are huge incentives and we need to be able to compete with that in order to, not only keep our nurses, but so that our new grads are staying with us when they get out (of school).”

Nurses hired into the provincial pool receive incentive pay of $6 per hour, or an additional 15 per cent of current wage (whichever is greater) for hours worked at float location or facility.

The pool program offers nurses a flexible schedule flexibility and experience in a variety of health-care facilities. It is a critical tool in combating staffing shortages, which have plagued rural health-care regions causing emergency room closures and service interruptions, Jackson said.

“It would be great if we were able to draw some nurses from the private, for-profit agencies back,” she said. “This nursing shortage was a long time coming, and it’s not going to be a quick fix.”

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca