ER crisis requires solutions, not more finger-pointing

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 20/12/2023 (743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Early on Monday morning, the Manitoba Nurses Union posted a tweet on its X (formerly Twitter) account that said that “HSC’s ER is drowning. Wait times are 30+ hours. We’re now moving patients to unmonitored hallways to make room for critical patients. These are practices we’ve never stooped to before, and to be clear, not a single nurse is comfortable with this. Someone will die unnecessarily.”

The ominous tweet included a graphic that said “New government, same problems.”

Later on Monday, a Shared Health spokesperson told the media that there were 164 patients who sought care at the Health Science Centre’s adult emergency room over the weekend. Of that total number of patients, 119 of were seriously ill. That resulted in a temporary overcapacity of the hospital’s six resuscitation beds.

In media interviews, Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson identified staff shortages, a lack of beds and the respiratory illness season as factors that are causing overwhelmed emergency rooms across the province.

She told the CBC that “The situation has been dire for a very long time, but it is definitely getting worse every day,” and that “It’s just got to the point where it is now the nurses are saying: ‘We can’t sustain this any longer. This is not safe.’”

Jackson added that she is most concerned about patients who are being moved to unmonitored areas of the hospital in order to make room for critically ill patients. “I know that the nurses are absolutely sick about having to do that because they know the care that those patients requires,” she said.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara blames the crisis on the Pallister government’s conversion of three Winnipeg ERs into urgent care centres, along with the alleged $1.6-billion deficit left by the Stefanson government.

She told the media on Monday that “The challenges we’re seeing in our emergency departments right now … did not happen overnight.” She added that “It’s going to take us some time to move things in the right direction, but health-care workers and our government are working together to do just that.”

That’s nice spin, but it does nothing to shorten rising ER wait times that are occurring across the province. It doesn’t even match the facts.

Manitoba has had some of the longest ER wait times in Canada dating back to the days of the Selinger NDP government. And it was the Selinger government that commissioned the plan to shut down three Winnipeg ERs, and expand three others, in order to shorten wait times in that city.

The plan has obviously not worked, but partisan finger-pointing by Asagwara does nothing to shorten wait times. Nor does it reassure Manitobans who will visit an ER over the next several weeks.

It’s time for our health minister to stop re-litigating the last election, and start solving the ER problem.

That would begin with Asagwara saying that they are aware of the problem, understands what is causing it, and is taking immediate steps to solve it.

It would include acknowledging that the root of the ER crisis lies in the fact there are 2,800 vacant nursing positions in the province, and that the shortage is putting dangerous pressure on the nurses currently working in the system.

In response to that problem, Asagwara should be directing their attention toward the creation of a viable plan to quickly reduce our nurse shortage, including a reasonable timeline for achieving that objective.

That would likely start with attempting to convince nurses who left the system during the COVID-19 pandemic to return to work. It could also include the expanded use of nurse practitioners.

In the immediate term, Asagwara must take steps to ensure that Manitobans will receive the care they need if they go to an ER anywhere in the province. If that means authorizing extra overtime, or even bringing in nurses and health-care professionals from other jurisdictions or agencies, she must consider every available option capable of helping us get through the current crisis.

Partisan deflection and finger-pointing won’t solve the ER problem, but a determined focus on achieving positive results will. Let’s hope our rookie health minister understands that.