Shared Health job cut accusation by PCs ‘patently untrue,’ health minister says | CBC News

Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives cried foul after some staff at Shared Health were let go.

During Monday’s question period, Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said some staff at Shared Health revealed to her last week that the NDP government had fired half of a strategic recruitment team at the organization.

“This team’s main goal was to target hard-to-find medical specialists to come and work in Manitoba,” she said, pressing Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara to explain the claim.

Asagwara called Cook’s accusation “patently untrue” during question period, but told reporters afterwards that their understanding is that some recent staffing changes at Shared Health were due to historical projects being completed.

“I did not give any direction for staff to be fired.… That was an internal decision made by them,” Asagwara said, deferring further questions to Shared Health.

A Shared Health spokesperson told CBC on Monday that recruitment, retention and training resources from different areas of the organization were recently merged.

“As part of that initiative, some staff who focused primarily on attending career fairs and online outreach were impacted,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“They were not responsible for the recruitment of medical specialists.”

Shared Health wouldn’t say how many people have been impacted, but says staff recruiting is still happening.

‘Lack of accountability,’ says Cook

An office focused on recruiting and retaining health-care workers in Manitoba is also in the works by the province, as announced in the 2024-25 budget.

However, Cook slammed the health minister for directing further questions to Shared Health as “an astounding lack of accountability.”

Cook says Asagwara should be expected to know the comings and goings at Manitoba’s largest service delivery organization given a shortage of health-care workers in the province.

“I would expect a more robust answer about exactly what’s happened here,” she told reporters.

The PCs also accused the NDP government during Monday’s question period of taking 12 beds offline at Boundary Trails Health Centre, but the Southern Regional Health Authority confirmed to CBC that no beds have been cut.