New health-care worker hires on the rise, but Manitoba NDP says it's not ready to share numbers

After six months of elbow grease to add workers to the province's health-care system, Manitoba's NDP government says it's not ready to share how successful those efforts have been.

In Monday's question period, interim Progressive Conservative Leader Wayne Ewasko asked Premier Wab Kinew to share the number of net new health-care workers in Manitoba since the NDP took office last October.

Kinew didn't share that number, instead criticizing the PCs for shutting down a number of Winnipeg emergency rooms while they were in power.

"Whereas they cut hundreds and hundreds of beds in our system, I'm happy to report today that we've already added 27 [medicine beds] back at the Health Sciences Centre alone," Kinew said, adding that the "work is not done, but it's underway."

"When we talk about opening up a bed, we're talking about the staffing resources necessary for that bed to reopen."

Manitoba's 2024-25 budget, announced last week, included a $310-million pledge toward its goal of adding a net gain of 1,000 health-care workers over the next year.

"We've seen a lot of promises, particularly around new beds and new facilities, and the fact is that following through on those commitments is going to create a huge need for staffing in the province," PC health critic Kathleen Cook told CBC following question period Monday.

Cook pressed Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara to share recruitment numbers in Monday's question period, referencing a Winnipeg Free Press article from May 2023, when then-health critic Asagwara criticized the then-governing PC party for not sharing that same data.

Asagwara did not share the numbers in question period and earlier Monday, during a news conference at Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre to announce new beds.

Asagwara said at the news conference that the province is still compiling the data but has "been able to see [that] we're trending in a better direction."

"We're seeing not only that we're trending in a positive direction in terms of stabilizing the health-care workforce and bringing folks on board, we're also seeing improvements in vacancy [rates]," they said.

When they were in government, the PCs shared an estimate of the number of health-care workers in Manitoba after announcing a $200 million recruitment plan, but they never disclosed whether it showed a net gain or a net loss.

But Cook says Manitobans should have a "reasonable expectation" that those numbers be made public, especially given Asagwara's previous comments on them.

"The minister and their department should have those numbers readily available, and certainly when they were in opposition the now-minister was adamant that this information should be transparent and available to Manitobans," Cook said.

"Now that they're in power, we're not seeing that transparency."