NDP hasn’t kept word on health care

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 30/09/2011 (5361 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Let’s talk about nursing in Manitoba. The NDP has made wild and misleading claims about the “firing” of nurses during the 1990s. By their own definition, the NDP “fired” 350 Victorian Order nurses shortly after they took office in 1999. Similarly, they “fired” 200 more nurses at Morden and Bethel hospitals in 2001.

When changes happen in the health system, union agreements require that layoff notices be issued in order for nursing staff to be deployed elsewhere in the system. It happened with the Tories. It has happened with the NDP.

Working as a professional in the health-care system during the ’90s, I witnessed firsthand the caring way the Filmon administration faced the challenges caused by the worst recession since the dirty ’30s. That recession resulted in the reduction of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal transfers. Provincial governments everywhere were forced to make changes.

What Greg Selinger neglects to tell us is that of the 1,137 nurses affected by layoff notices between 1992 and 1999, 830 nurses were rehired, 274 retired, and only 33 were actually laid off. Even so, through careful management during that difficult period, Manitoba’s record of retaining nursing staff was the best of all the provinces (Source: Statistics Canada).

The NDP and their union friends will try to mislead us, but the NDP’s record of failure in heath care speaks for itself.

The years since the election of the NDP government have been years of record government revenues and federal transfers. Why, then, has health care not improved? Why can’t we keep doctors in Brandon? Why do we wait and wait for specialists?

Elections are like wars, the truth being the first casualty. The NDP are masters of propaganda, but they are certainly haven’t kept their word about protecting health-care services.

Manitobans deserve better.

Darryl Darling

Brandon