Manitoba boosts health system workforce by 1,255 but staffing crisis remains, unions say
Manitoba has added 1,255 new health-care workers “to the bedside” since the start of April 2024, Premier Wab Kinew says.
That’s a net increase, taking into account any departures that happened over that time, Kinew said during a Friday news conference at St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg.
When the NDP was elected in October 2023, he assured understaffed health-care workers struggling with burnout that help was coming, Kinew said, “and now here we are, heading into our second budget, we are able to say we reached out first budget’s target [of 1,000] and exceeded it.”
The breakdown of new hires includes:
- 481 nurses.
- 386 health-care aides.
- 162 allied health-care workers (diagnostics and others).
- 138 physicians.
- 39 residents.
- 28 physician assistants and clinical assistants.
- 14 allied health workers (emergency response services).
- 7 midwives.
“After years of losing nurses in Manitoba, we’ve … started to turn the corner,” Kinew said. Fixing health care “is going to take years,” he said, “but the good news is, we’re making progress.”
Kinew also said there has been a 45 per cent reduction in the use of mandatory overtime in the Winnipeg health region.
ER on track for Victoria Hospital
The NDP, during its 2023 election campaign, promised to reopen the emergency departments at three Winnipeg hospitals — Concordia, Seven Oaks and Victoria, starting with the latter, but only once the necessary staff were in place.
After his government delivered its first budget last year, Kinew said he expected “shovels in the ground” for Victoria’s ER within two years.
Asked Friday if that’s on track, he said design work is happening and “we’re starting to see the staffing improve to a level where we can move ahead,” promising south Winnipeg is “getting that new emergency room.”
The province has also been tackling the issues of safety and security at health-care facilities, said Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara.
The province has funded 126 institutional safety officers — a class of security guard with authority to detain people and enforce provincial laws — with 96 already working at facilities and others to be hired or in training, they said.
“And if we need to go beyond 126 institutional safety officers, then we will,” to ensure “all health-care workers can go to work every day knowing they’re safe,” said Asagwara.
Asagwara also said AI weapon scanners installed as a pilot program at the entrances to Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre will be made permanent there, as well as at the Children’s Hospital emergency department and the Crisis Response Centre.
Other safety improvements include upgrades at parkades and enhanced safe walk programs, a news release from the province stated, but did not provide details.
Asagwara said the province is working with administrators at each site to tailor the security measures to their specific needs.
‘Definitely still need more staff’: CUPE
The Canadian Union of Public Employees, in an emailed news release, called the improvements to the health system a “huge relief” for front-line workers, but said many facilities continue to work short-handed amid an ongoing staffing crisis.
CUPE 204 president Margaret Schroeder said the added positions are spread across the province, so the impact in each location is actually minor.
“We definitely still need more staff,” she said in an interview. “After all the cuts that we’ve had under the previous [Progressive Conservative] government it’s nice to see us coming up to where we once were. [But] we need more everywhere.”
The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals echoed that sentiment in its own email release, saying while it appreciates “efforts to staff up in health care,” the 162 net new allied health professionals — including only 14 paramedics — “is not nearly enough to have a significant impact.”
“So there’s a disconnect between the government’s numbers and what our members are feeling on the front lines,” the union said.
Hiring for allied health positions is slow, partly because they’re highly specialized, but also because Manitoba loses hundreds of professionals each year to other jurisdictions with better wages, incentives and working conditions, the release stated.
There are currently at least 1,000 vacant allied health positions, with hundreds more poised for retirement, according to the union.
“The Manitoba government is not on track to fix the allied health staffing crisis, which means they are not on track to fix health care.”
Dr. Kristjan Thompson, chief medical officer at St. Boniface Hospital and the former president of Doctors Manitoba, said the announcement gives him hope.
“By addressing our staffing vacancies, by reducing our overtime costs, and by providing support — much needed support — to our front-line workers who are working tirelessly day in and day out, this is how we move the needle,” he said.
Ultimately, it’s also what’s best for patients, Thompson said, “and make no mistake … all of us, at one point or another, will become patients. We can’t escape it.”
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