Manitoba budget lacks immediate measures to tackle staffing shortfall, health-care advocates say

A huge chunk of the Manitoba government's latest budget is devoted to improving health care in the province, including $110 million to address the backlog of surgeries and diagnostic tests. 

But health-care unions say the real problem is a lack of staff, and that Tuesday's budget does little to address that. 

As of March, Doctors Manitoba estimated nearly 168,000 Manitobans are waiting for surgery or diagnostic tests — a number that keeps going up every month. 

It's causing some Manitobans like Betty Craig to go out of the country to get badly needed surgeries. 

Last September, a surgeon told her the wait time for her knee replacement would usually be about nine months.

A few months later, she was told the wait would be another two years. 

That was too long to wait to fix, she said. 

"I could feel the bones grating together. There was no cartilage in the joint any longer. And so every step was painful. Every bend was painful. So I couldn't do very much," she said. 

Craig decided to go to Lithuania to receive the surgery, but she feels for people who can't afford that option. 

"It's so sad because people are in pain. If there's a surgery that can be done to improve their life, it should be done."

In addition to the $110 million allocated to address the backlog, the budget also includes $9 million to add 28 more intensive care units to the province's health-care system. 

Part of the province's strategy to deal with the backlog will be issuing a request for services to allow Manitoba providers to take on additional procedures, while work is also underway to collaborate with out-of province providers, the 2022 budget document says. 

There's also $630 million to support the province's ongoing pandemic response and $812 million to build, expand and renovate health-care facilities across the province. 

Staff shortages

Darlene Jackson, the head of the Manitoba Nurses Union, said she was disappointed that this year's budget doesn't contain plans to fix the staffing crunch in the province's health-care system in the short term. 

Without that, it will be difficult to tackle the backlog. 

"If you don't have the health human resources there, if you don't have a nurse at the bedside, if you don't have a nurse in the OR, all the money in the world isn't going to change that," said Jackson. 

There's also $11 million earmarked for strategies to increase the number of nursing students in the province, and $7.6 million to hire 35 additional primary care paramedics. 

Money to educate more nurses is good, but that won't pay off for years, said Jackson.

"I would have really liked to see something that provides respite right now."

The plans to hire 35 more paramedics outlined in the budget won't even come close to addressing the critical shortage in rural and northern communities, said Bob Moroz, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, which represents about 800 rural paramedics.

Moroz said he would have liked to see a stronger commitment to to training, recruitment and retention of allied health professionals. 

"People are leaving professions earlier than they would have originally planned, and that's causing even more of a crunch," he said. 

"It's really quite devastating out there." 

Meanwhile, Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Kristjan Thompson said in a news release that the budget represents a significant investment in Manitoba's health-care system, but that physicians would have liked to see more immediate actions to retain doctors, nurses and other health-care workers who are feeling burned out, devalued and distressed.

Finance Minister Cameron Friesen told reporters Tuesday he recognizes that funding is only half the battle of addressing the backlog, with the other half being finding more staff. 

"We're working on that, too," he said, pointing to the province's plans to add 259 nurse training seats to post-secondary institutions in Manitoba that were announced last December. 

Pressed on whether the province has a target to end the backlog, Friesen said the situation is fluid. 

"People will continue to need new surgeries, diagnosis will continue to be done, people will continue, unfortunately, to have accidents that will place someone on wait list," he said. 

"So, yes, it is not static, it's dynamic. This work will go on."