Board member resigns, slams Manitoba health minister's 'blame game' on overspending

A board member with a western Manitoba health authority has abruptly resigned, saying he feels its leadership is being unfairly blamed by the health minister for cost overruns.

"I will not be part of the blame game for the impending health-care funding crisis that's coming," said David Moriaux, who stepped down as a Prairie Mountain Health board member last month.

Moriaux, who is also the deputy mayor of Swan River, said the "straw that broke the camel's back" was a Dec. 16 news conference in which the NDP government reported the projected deficit for the current fiscal year had increased by half a billion dollars, to a total of $1.3 billion.

Health-care costs were the biggest driver of the deficit. Finance Minister Adrien Sala's report said health regions, which overspent by $230 million, had "longstanding failures to deliver services within funding or anticipate financial pressures."

"Overages in health spending are not only accepted but assumed unavoidable," Sala claimed.

Less than a week before, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said regional health authorities had been instructed to redirect eight per cent of their funding from its bureaucracy to the front lines and clinical services, a target they called "very achievable."

External audits into several health authorities are slated to be released this year. 

But Moriaux said costs are escalating because of the use of private agency nurses, an expensive substitute for publicly funded nurses.

The government has said it's working to reduce its reliance on nursing agencies, but "until you have that new model and staffing in place … there's basically nowhere to cut expenses to match your revenues," said Moriaux.

The government's frequent targeting of administrative costs is misguided, as only so much bureaucracy can be cut "before you start seeing the negative effects," he said.

Moriaux also alleges the government wants Prairie Mountain Health to "massage or lie" about its budgetary figures.

In the fall, the health authority presented a budget for the upcoming 2025-26 fiscal year that showed a $40-million revenue shortfall, he said. In previous years, both NDP and Progressive Conservative governments have accepted budgets with similar funding deficits. The health authority used its reserves to cover the shortfall.

But this year, the province told Prairie Mountain it had to present a balanced budget in advance of the fiscal year.

"We, as a RHA [regional health authority] board, had presented factual numbers that were backed up by data, that's verified year after year and by provincial auditors of the region that were true and accurate, and now you want us to massage or lie on the numbers to make a balanced budget," he said.