Manitoba denies province missed deadline on nurse practitioner pay change

Manitoba’s nurse practitioners say the province has missed a deadline to ensure primary care services are publicly funded. CTV’s Jeff Keele explains.

Nurse practitioners can diagnose conditions, prescribe medications, and order diagnostics such as MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds—but their association says Manitobans are unnecessarily paying out of pocket for some of those services.

The federal government set an April 1 deadline for provinces to act on a new interpretation of the Canada Health Act, which allows primary care provided by nurse practitioners, pharmacists, and midwives to be covered by provincial health plans on equal footing with physician care. Ashley Carruthers, CEO of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Manitoba, says the province has missed that deadline.

“There has not been any uptake; there has not been any push,” said Carruthers.

Carruthers says nurse practitioners want to run private clinics as doctors do—billing the public system rather than patients directly, which is currently not the case.

“If you are seeking care from a nurse practitioner in a private practice, you will continue to pay out of pocket, and remember that we live in a society where you don’t need to,” said Carruthers.

Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara sees the situation differently.

“We didn’t miss the deadline; our government is actually ahead of that,” said Asagwara.

Asagwara says Manitoba is aligned with the federal government on the issue.

“There are some nurse practitioners who have independent practices who are delivering services I believe outside of the Canada Health Act parameters, so that’s likely what they’re referring to,” said Asagwara.

Carruthers says the association has raised the issue directly with the minister but is unclear why the changes have not been made.

“Our members have made it known that they will continue to open up more and more private practices because they see the gaps,” said Carruthers.

There is currently no penalty for missing the deadline—consequences for non-compliance are not set to take effect until April 2027.