Nurses aren't seeing results on front lines, despite NDP plan to fix health-care system: Nurses' Union
Health minister says this government's approach is different from PCs, and progress is being made
The Manitoba Nurses Union is calling for the provincial government to be more transparent about the state of health care as nurses aren't seeing any significant changes, despite the NDP's plan to fix the system.
Union president Darlene Jackson said the level of transparency is comparable to the previous government even though NDP Premier Wab Kinew, who was elected in October 2023, assured workers struggling with burnout at understaffed hospitals that help was on the way.
"What we're finding is there's very little transparency from this government. There's almost no collaborative effort with this government and … we need our members' voices heard out there," Jackson said during a news conference at the MNU building on Thursday.
She said the Manitoba government must end reliance on private agency nurses and reinvest in permanent staff to make nursing a lifelong career.
The government announced Friday it has hired 1,255 net new health care workers — which includes 481 nurses — since April last year. Kinew previously clarified that the net new number accounts for departures that happened over the same period.
But union president Darlene Jackson said nurses aren't seeing an increase in staff and continue to be overworked.
"The day that announcement came out, I had messages from members asking me where are they?"
Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara addressed the union's concerns on transparency during a news conference at the Manitoba Legislative Building on Thursday afternoon.
"I can tell you as a nurse myself, as somebody who worked on the front lines under the previous PC administration, our government's approach is completely different than the previous PC government. We respect nurses, we value nurses and we've actively been listening to nurses in their workplaces," Asagwara said.
The minister said the provincial government has been listening to nurses since "Day 1" and is making sure they are getting fairly bargained collective agreements along with more hired health-care staff.
Asagwara also said the 481 net new nurses are working in the public health-care system.
"We know that the changes that Manitobans want to see, that nurses want to see, the big changes are going to take time," Asagwara said.
"The previous government broke the trust of health-care workers and now the NDP is trying to restore that trust."
Issues have increased: report
Issues involving emergency and urgent care wait times, staffing vacancies, overtime, violence in hospitals and agency spending on private nurses have increased, according to a white paper the Manitoba Nurses Union released Wednesday.
The 36-page report addresses the realities nurses have been seeing for years — that they are drowning in a health-care system that is failing front-line workers and the patients they care for, Jackson said.
"There is no doubt that our health-care system is in crisis," she said.
"Our hospitals are becoming unsafe places to work and unsafe places to receive care all over the province."
In 2020, nearly one in six nursing positions remained unfilled which worsened in the summer of 2024 with approximately one in five nursing positions left vacant provincewide, the report said, which credited the data to a freedom of information request to various health authorities.
The rise in vacancies has resulted in an increase in nurses working overtime hours, which is linked to greater risks in more critical incidents involving medical errors, injuries, toxic workplace culture and higher mortality rates, Jackson said.
From the 2023-24 fiscal year, nurses worked more than 1.1 million overtime hours compared to 800,000 overtime hours during the 2020-21 fiscal year, the report said.
"This is not just a staffing crisis, this is a patient safety crisis," she said.
According to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre is ranked as the largest community teaching hospital to have the highest standardized mortality rate in Canada.
St. Boniface Hospital, Grace Hospital and Brandon Regional Health Centre were also listed in the top eight largest community teaching hospitals with high mortality rates, the report said.
Union survey
The union sent out a survey to its 13,000 members in late 2024 which got a response from 1,326 people.
The survey showed 23 per cent of nurses who responded believed overall health care and patient outcomes had gotten worse, whereas 35 per cent said they had seen some improvements in the past year. The survey said 42 per cent of nurses saw no improvements or noted the overall health care and patient outcomes were the same as before.
Wait times for emergency and urgent care centres have more than doubled, resulting in approximately one in seven patients leaving without being seen by a health provider, the report said.
Jackson said Manitoba is losing nurses to other provinces, the private sector, retirement and those who are leaving the profession.
The province also needs nurses to help mentor and support new graduates. While the province has increased the number of seats in schools, Jackson said the health-care system won't likely see the impacts for another year or two because nursing programs run for four years.
The only thing workers can do is "tread water" until they have adequate nurses in the system, she said.
The Manitoba Nurses Union has multiple recommendations, including improving Manitoba's Provincial Travel Nurse Team, hospital safety, increasing transparency and more incentives for senior nurses to support new nursing graduates.
Asagwara said the province is already making progress on them.
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With files from Rosanna Hempel and Joanne Levasseur