Newfoundland and Labrador unhappy with Sask. attempt to lure health-care workers, plans to fight back

Saskatchewan's plan to recruit health-care workers from other provinces has drawn the ire of one province that is now promising to return the favour.

This week, Saskatchewan's newly created health-care recruitment agency started a trip with the Saskatchewan Health Authority to five Canadian provinces. The recruiters plan to meet with health-care workers, students and post-secondary institutions in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Tom Osborne, health minister in Newfoundland and Labrador, is now heading to Saskatchewan to try to attract health-care workers to move east.

Osborne and his officials will be in Saskatchewan on Tuesday. He plans to attempt to lure workers in Saskatoon, Regina and Prince Albert.

"If Saskatchewan is in Newfoundland and Labrador, we have to go to Saskatchewan, otherwise we allow them to take our health-care workers without getting health-care workers back in return," he said.

Osborne said that on Sept. 7, when the Saskatchewan government announced its plans, he reached out to Everett Hindley, Saskatchewan's health minister.

Osborne said he planned to take the "diplomatic" route, hoping Saskatchewan would not send recruiters to his province. But when they arrived this week, he decided to respond.

"I have no issue with advertising incentives or passive recruitment," he said.

"Aggressive, active, on-the-ground recruitment teams looking for health professionals — when the entire country is struggling for health professionals — is quite another thing."

Osborne said his province is offering health-care professions financial incentives, including up to $450,000 for physicians and up to $100,000 for nurses. 

Saskatchewan's Health Minister Everett Hindley was not made available for comment in response to his counterpart heading to Saskatchewan.

A spokesperson for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health said Wednesday that Hindley's trip "plans to highlight in-demand health-care occupations to meet current and future resourcing needs as well as showcase Saskatchewan."

"This recruitment tour will work to capitalize on promoting the SHA as an employer of choice, Saskatchewan's many employment opportunities, and the benefits and incentives available for health-care professionals and students in Saskatchewan," the statement said.

When asked about the spat on Thursday, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey said his province offers one of the best recruitment and retention packages in Canada.

"If people want to poach them then it's our duty and responsibility to make sure we are protecting them, but also looking for others to come here," he said.

Newfoundland and Labrador NDP Leader Jim Dinn said Minister Osborne was "engaging in wasteful and unnecessary chest thumping exercises."

Dinn said Saskatchewan headed to Newfoundland because it believed health-care workers there could be poached.

"If the minister of health was certain that this province was a favourable place to live, his response to Saskatchewan would have been 'Go ahead, try it. Our health-care workers are here to stay'," said Dinn.

Union not impressed

Yvette Coffey, president of Newfoundland and Labrador's Registered Nurses Union, was unimpressed by the duelling recruiting events. The money Osborne will spend on taking a team to Saskatchewan would be better spent improving conditions for workers already in Newfoundland and Labrador and creating a strategy to retain them, she said.

"Let's work on our province, and work on the health-care system here, and look at the things that actually deter people from taking a permanent, full-time position or remaining in a permanent, full-time position in our province," she said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

Coffey said she'd like to see provinces working together on a national retention strategy rather than duking it out for workers.