1 year later, scrutinized recruitment agency fails to bring to Manitoba any of the 150 doctors it promised

One year after the Manitoba government hired a staffing agency to bring 150 doctors to work in the province, not a single physician has arrived.

Shared Health, which oversees health-care delivery in the province, said no doctors have been brought over and wouldn't answer if any recruits are in the queue.

Provincial Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the lack of progress from recruitment firm Canadian Health Labs (CHL) is unfortunate.

"Obviously it's disappointing that the previous government signed a contract with a company that hasn't produced physicians for Manitoba," Asagwara said.

The province can terminate or delay the contract, according to a redacted copy Radio-Canada received through a freedom of information request, but Asagwara said the government won't stop the firm from continuing its work.

The government only has to pay Canadian Health Labs if it delivers a physician, and the province would be hit with a financial penalty if it cancelled the deal, the minister said. 

Asagwara said it's unfortunate that CHL hasn't been able to recruit any physicians to date, "but I also want to make sure we're not throwing good money after bad," Asagwara said.

"We're going to continue to assess this agreement while we take real action and real steps to recruit more doctors." 

The as-yet fruitless recruitment drive is a marked departure from the optimism provincial officials expressed at a news conference a year ago Wednesday. At the time, Audrey Gordon, the former Progressive Conservative health minister, said said she was confident Canadian Health Labs would meet its targets.

The contract, which followed a competitive request for proposals process, was designed to recruit 50 physicians in Winnipeg, 50 in northern Manitoba and 50 in other rural communities — all within two years.

Canadian Health Labs is the same firm that's been the subject of a Globe and Mail investigation into its business practices.

The Globe reported the agency charged other provinces a $300-plus hourly rate for agency nurses — six times what a staff nurse was earning — and invoiced them for daily meal allowances despite telling the nurses to pay for their own food. The company has faced political blowback and its contracts have either been reviewed or investigated in two Atlantic provinces.

The Manitoba deal was signed the same day in July when the Tories publicly announced the "focused recruitment drive."

"Our government is healing health care by bringing more doctors into the province," Gordon told a news conference.