Health minister’s political interference with nursing college puts Manitoba lives at risk

Opinion

When you find yourself in a hospital bed, you want to believe the nurse taking your pulse knows exactly what they’re doing — not just because they passed a test once upon a time, but because they’ve been in the field, working with patients, staying sharp, staying current.

That’s the reason the College of Registered Nurses of Manitoba exists — to make sure nurses practising in the province are competent, qualified and actively maintaining the skills needed to keep patients safe.

But right now, the college is being told to step aside.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara has issued a directive that, in essence, tells the college to stop doing a key part of its job, which is to ensure nurses recruited from other provinces have recent, hands-on experience before they’re licensed to practise here.

The college has been requiring nurses transferring from other jurisdictions to have at least 450 hours of nursing experience in Canada over the past two years, or 1,225 hours in the past five years.

That’s hardly an onerous requirement. It translates into a little over four hours per week of nursing work, on average. It’s a reasonable practice to ensure nurses transferring from other jurisdictions are up to date on the rapidly evolving demands of the profession.

However, the province has told the college to drop that requirement, arguing that it’s inconsistent with interprovincial labour mobility and the principles of free trade between provinces.

That’s wrong and it interferes with the college’s statutory responsibility to regulate its own members.

By issuing this directive, Asagwara is putting trade policy ahead of lives and the safety of patients. That’s a pretty disturbing place to land.

The college was first ordered in 2022 by the former Progressive Conservative government to drop its minimum working requirement for out-of-province nurses to comply with inter-provincial trade agreements.The college complied.

“The moment we start issuing licences to nurses without verifying recent practice, we’re lowering the bar. And in health care, lowering the bar has real-life consequences.”

 

But after monitoring the outcome of that decision for two years, the college found there were disturbing consequences.

Two patients died as the result of the lax policy (one of the nurses surrendered their licence voluntarily and the other was suspended) and there was a significant increase in complaints about nursing incompetence linked to the labour-mobility applicants.

According to the college, many lacked basic nursing knowledge, including the ability to take or interpret vital signs, perform a health assessment and safely administer medication.

That’s pretty scary.

As a result, the college reversed the policy and, in December, reinstituted the minimum standards. Asagwara, in turn, demanded in an April 30 letter that the college revert back to the previous government’s 2022 directive.

Nurses are the backbone of our health-care system. They’re the ones who catch the early signs of trouble, who juggle the needs of a dozen patients at once, who make critical decisions in real time.

Making sure those nurses are up to speed should have nothing to do with trade agreements and everything to do with professional standards — determined by an independent self-regulating body, not government.

“The government should stand behind the college, not overrule it.”

The college is now pushing back against Asagwara’s directive and has gone public with its complaint about government interference, as it should. The public has a right to know.

Professional self-regulation is a long-standing principle in this country. Whether it’s doctors, engineers or lawyers, we count on regulatory colleges to maintain public trust and uphold standards — not because they’re infallible, but because they have the expertise to do it.

The minimum working-hours requirement isn’t about excluding qualified nurses from other provinces. It’s about verifying that they’re ready to hit the ground running, not arriving with credentials that may be stale or no longer aligned with Manitoba’s standards.

If we start bending the rules to meet short-term staffing targets, we invite long-term consequences. The moment we start issuing licences to nurses without verifying recent practice, we’re lowering the bar. And in health care, lowering the bar has real-life consequences.

The directive issued by Asagwara undermines the authority of the college and, more importantly, undermines the trust the public has in our regulatory system.

What the province should be doing is working with the college to address the underlying issues — such as nursing shortages and recruitment bottlenecks — without compromising patient care. That means investing in training, supporting internationally educated nurses and improving working conditions so we can keep the nurses we have and attract the ones we need.

Patient safety should be the top priority of every decision made in our health-care system. That means trusting the experts — in this case, the regulatory college — to set the rules that keep Manitobans safe.

Professional regulators should be free to do their jobs without political interference. When that independence is compromised, so is the integrity of the system.

Asagwara should reverse this directive. The government should stand behind the college, not overrule it. And Manitobans should expect that their health and safety never take a back seat to trade agreements or political expedience.

Let the college do its job. Our lives depend on it.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca