Manitoba recruiters sign up 350 PH nurses, other health care staff

Health Minister Audrey Gordon at a news conference on Wednesday with Advanced Education Minister Jon Reyes, who was on the recruitment mission to the Philippines last month. (CBC)

A Manitoba recruitment team returned from the Philippines having signed up 350 nurses and other health care personnel to help fill the Canadian province’s serious health care staffing shortage.

The effort, however, received push-back from critics questioning the ethics of recruiting internationally trained health care personnel from the Philippines.

The five-day mission provided letters of intent to 190 registered nurses, 110 health-care aides and 50 licensed practical nurse equivalents, reported Global News Canada.

“Our government committed to providing a welcoming streamlined and reasonable process to ensure that internationally educated health care providers are able to practice their passion and excel in our health care system,” Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon said in a press conference.

Gordon said the recruits may start working in summer. They must complete an immigration interview, confirmation of English language requirements, and the timing of their clinical competency assessment has to be arranged.

Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont, however, questioned the ethics of Manitoba’s government recruiting hundreds of nurses from the Philippines, which he says is also facing its own nursing shortage, CBC News reported.

Moreover, some internationally trained nurses and their organizations have called on provincial authorities to pay more attention to nurses already in the province who have been having difficulty getting accredited to practice, some of them for many years.