A staffing agency hired by Manitoba's former Progressive Conservative government on a promise to recruit 150 doctors to the province in fact only managed to bring two.
The two-year contract with Canadian Health Labs was initially hailed as a critical piece in Manitoba's efforts to find more doctors, particularly in rural and northern areas, where jobs are typically harder to fill.
But the contract expired last month, after the current NDP government didn't exercise its option for a third year. It confirmed to Radio-Canada that only two doctors were recruited under the contract.
The fact the company recruited just over one per cent of the 150 doctors promised is frustrating for Breanne Mueller, who has been looking for a family doctor in Steinbach for the 12 years she's lived there.
"Where do they find these recruitment companies?" she asked.
"Maybe start asking questions if you only have two doctors in two years. Something might be going on."
Company under fireCanadian Health Labs, which started recruiting health-care professionals during the COVID-19 pandemic, has come under fire in the Atlantic provinces for charging a $300-plus hourly rate for agency nurses — six times what a staff nurse earns — and invoicing them for daily meal allowances despite telling the nurses to pay for their own food.
In New Brunswick, the Vitalité Health Network has tried to get out of its deal with Canadian Health Labs by cancelling remaining shifts for the company's travel nurses before its contract expired in 2026.
That province enacted legislation this year to shield the government from any legal or financial penalties regarding its contract, while Canadian Health Labs has responded with a lawsuit.
Manitoba's deal with Canadian Health Labs, signed in July 2023 following a competitive request for proposals process, sought to bring 50 physicians to Winnipeg, 50 to northern Manitoba and 50 to other rural communities.
When the deal was announced, then health minister Audrey Gordon said she was confident the staffing agency would meet its targets, with penalties in place if goals weren't achieved at certain stages.
Former Manitoba health minister Audrey Gordon speaks at a news conference touting the new deal with Canadian Health Labs in July 2023. (Justin Fraser/CBC)Eight months later, without a single physician recruited, the company told CBC News it had done a "significant amount of work" in recruiting family physicians to Manitoba. Shared Health, which oversees health-care delivery in the province, said at that point the province had "assigned dedicated recruiters in a number of countries."
The province's contract with Canadian Health Labs was valued at up to $5.25 million, but Manitoba will only pay for the two physicians recruited — between $25,000 and $45,000 for each doctor, the government said in a statement.
The company didn't answer repeated requests for comment from Radio-Canada.
The two physicians recruited under the contract are originally from the United Kingdom and began their practices in Winnipeg.
In 2023-24, Manitoba saw a net increase of 133 physicians — the largest on record, according to Doctors Manitoba — but a report from the advocacy group, citing Canadian Institute for Health Information data, said the province still ranks second-last among physicians per capita in Canada, with 219 physicians per 100,000 residents.
Steinbach's Mueller said she enrolled in the province's family doctor finder program in 2013. She didn't hear back until 2021.
"I was shocked when they [called], because I pretty much forgot that I was even on the list."
They told her they still couldn't match her with a doctor, and then asked if she still wanted to be on the list.
Braenne Mueller signed on to the provincial family doctor finder program when she moved to Steinbach in 2013. She eventually took herself off the list, after she got a call in 2021 saying there was no luck in finding her a doctor in the southeastern Manitoba city. (Darin Morash/CBC)She removed herself because she believes the provincial program is ineffective. Instead, she's still calling Steinbach clinics whenever people tell her a doctor is accepting new patients. But whenever she calls, she's told they aren't accepting anybody else.
"Something's gotta change," Mueller said.
She would switch from her Winnipeg physician to one in Steinbach if she could, as any visit to see her doctor takes several hours, when accounting for travel time and the appointment itself.
"This community, since I've been here, is just booming. It's crazy the amount of people" moving to Steinbach, a city of 17,000 people that's just over 50 kilometres from Winnipeg.
"But the health care still remains the same, if not worse," she said.
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara's office, citing government statistics, said since the NDP government was elected in October 2023, 201 net new physicians have started practising in Manitoba, and an additional 12 have accepted an offer to work.
The minister attributed some of this success to the government's new office focused on recruiting and retaining health-care workers.
Worried for future shortagesThe net gain puts the NDP more than halfway toward its election promise of 400 additional physicians.
Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets said that progress is appreciated, but "we can't rest on our laurels."
"In 10 years, our elderly population is going to far exceed what it is right now and also require more health-care resources," she said.
Desilets said the best recruitment strategy is an existing workforce of people who love their work and are supported.
Progressive Conservative deputy leader Jeff Bereza said the province's deal with Canadian Health Labs "is yet another example of the NDP inheriting a successful PC program, and setting it up to fail."
In a statement, Bereza compared the contract with the health-care recruitment mission to the Philippines and the surgical and diagnostic task force, both Tory government initiatives.
"The NDP dismantled both and falsely claimed they didn't work. They didn't try," he said.
"It's time for the NDP to stop blaming the PCs for their health-care failures, and start delivering on their election promises to Manitobans."
The former Progressive Conservative government hired Canadian Health Labs in 2023 to bring 150 doctors to Manitoba over two years. The recruitment firm finished its work this summer, after bringing two doctors to the province.