Future of Shared Health ‘interesting question’ after audit report: health minister

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This article was published 06/02/2025 (217 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Shared Health’s financial-planning failures have renewed questions about whether the NDP government will revive a 2023 election pledge to dismantle it, but the agency’s chair says board members are focused on fixes rather than fusion.

A newly released audit exposes the provincial health authority’s record of flouting financial reporting requirements, poor internal and external communication and failing to identify cost savings on a timely basis.

“Historically, extraordinary changes in demand have not been managed in a proactive manner and incorporated into financial forecasts once the related costs become apparent,” states an excerpt of a 97-page report compiled by MNP.

The auditing firm was contracted last year to understand why Shared Health — which manages the Health Sciences Centre and co-ordinates ambulances, mental-health services and administrative support for regions — regularly operated in a deficit between 2019-2020 and 2023-2024.

Among its findings, board members expressed concerns they were too far from decision-making and could not provide effective oversight.

Board chair Brian Postl said his team has, for the better part of the last year, been actively adjusting how the provincial health authority operates, although he acknowledged “there’s big challenges in health care.”

Postl was appointed to his current position last winter when the province made a slew of board membership changes at the umbrella organization and commissioned retrospective audits of six health-care entities.

“As of right now, we’ve had no indication of merging service delivery organizations,” said Postl, a retired pediatrician and founding chief executive officer of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority — a job he held between 1999 and 2010.

As far as the veteran health-care leader is concerned, the way a system performs overall and how its entities collaborate is far more important than its structure, in and of itself.

“One of the comments that I noted (in the audits) was that there hasn’t been sufficient collaboration between the SDOs, and I think that’s correct; I think that’s a major area to focus on,” he said, noting that all recommendations are being reviewed by relevant board committees.

MNP completed separate probes into Shared Health and the WRHA. Deloitte was tasked with investigating spending across all remaining regions, except for Southern Health — an outlier in that it has not repeatedly been in the red in recent years.

The three reports, each of which are dated last December, were released Wednesday. Minutes beforehand, Shared Health and the WRHA made separate announcements about turfing their respective CEOs.

A spokesperson for physicians advocacy group Doctors Manitoba said members see potential for Shared Health to improve front-line care by bolstering recruitment efforts, developing clinical standards and reducing common administrative burdens.

“At this point, we aren’t seeing that potential realized. The feedback we hear from physicians is that decision-making has become more centralized,” the spokesperson said, adding a lack of effective engagement contributes to burnout.

Only a third of doctors who participated in the advocacy organization’s 2024 workforce survey indicated they have opportunities to provide input on changes that impact their jobs.

Asked Wednesday about whether the NDP is considering merging Shared Health and the WRHA, Manitoba’s health minister said it was “an interesting question.”

“I remain open to doing whatever is necessary to make sure patients are receiving the best care possible,” Uzoma Asagwara told reporters during a news conference about the audits.

Asagwara said the Health Department’s priority is to make sure the regional authorities and system as a whole have the leadership, capacity and accountability necessary to deliver better services.

Doctors Manitoba said having HSC — the province’s largest hospital — separated from WRHA creates divisiveness by pitting Winnipeg-area hospitals against each other when patients require transfers.

“It can be more challenging to move a patient from a WRHA hospital to HSC than it is between two WRHA hospitals,” a spokesperson said in a statement.

While the MNP report states deficits impede Shared Health’s ability to plan effectively and make the best decisions for patient care, its recommendations zone in on decision-making processes.

One such recommendation would require leaders to propose a list of cost-saving measures equal to three times the reported deficit within 90 days of such disclosures on a quarterly update.

The consulting firm also endorsed a zero-based budgeting model that would require managers to justify old, recurring and new expenses every year.

As for the board’s operations, the report suggested mandatory governance training for members, appointee terms be staggered and their stipends be reviewed and increased.

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.ca