Listening to concerns can help fix health care

“If you want safer care, you need enough nurses on every shift.”

— X post by Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew

“The NDP is now backpedalling and trying to undo the damage they’ve caused. (An) extension isn’t enough time for Prairie Mountain Health to fill the 50 per cent of nursing positions that were vacant as of last Thursday and Friday when the agency nursing changes took effect.”

— PC health critic Kathleen Cook

The Kinew government seems oblivious when it comes to taking a little good advice.

Even when it comes from its own premier.

Just last month, Wab Kinew issued a series of posts to the social media site formerly known as Twitter to talk about how his government would introduce legislation this coming spring to end mandatory overtime for nurses, and how Manitoba had already hired 3,500 more health-care workers, including 1,200 more nurses.

“We can make this change — and deliver better health care for Manitobans.”

With all due respect to the premier, we would argue that at least here in western Manitoba, we’re not yet at that point.

The careers section of the Prairie Mountain Health website shows there are 182 open full-time, part-time and casual Nurse II positions currently available across the RHA, with more than 50 of them situated in Brandon, 43 open in Dauphin, and 12 in Swan River.

Moreover, there are currently 264 open positions for licensed practical nurses in PMH, and 180 health-care aide positions.

Whatever message the Kinew government may be spinning about having hired thousands of new nurses and other health-care workers, it seems somewhat clear that Prairie Mountain Health has yet to feel the love.

Kinew did say one thing of importance in December, however, that we happen to agree with — safer care requires enough nurses to handle the workload. That in and of itself is not a controversial statement, but the fact that the province thinks it can act without those nurses in place remains both a mystery and a problem.

Earlier this month, we reported that emergency rooms in Dauphin and Swan River could face temporary closures due to the cancellation of most private nursing agency contracts in the province. Both of these Prairie Mountain Health ERs have already been dealing with increased staff shortages after the provincial government’s move to only four nursing agencies came into effect last week.

While PMH told the Sun that the ERs in Dauphin and Swan River were not expected to temporarily close, Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said the Dauphin Regional Health Centre, the Swan Valley Health Centre and the hospital in Powerview-Pine Falls were all “heavily” dependent on agency nurses.

The question is why the provincial government thought that cutting ties with dozens of nursing agencies that supplied qualified staff for rural Manitoba would entice nursing staff in the private sector to join the provincial umbrella. Such heavy-handed tactics — a stick instead of a carrot — tend to blow up in your face.

Like it did this week, when the province was forced to dial back its move to sever ties with all but four nursing agencies.

In an email to the Winnipeg Free Press on Tuesday, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara confirmed that health regions will be able to continue using agencies to fill gaps in the interim, while they try to work out the kinks in the transition period.

“The direction to move forward with the transition remains unchanged. As this work continues, regions are being supported to manage patient safety in real time,” Asagwara stated. “That includes allowing regions with unique challenges the flexibility to temporarily work with agencies, as needed, to ensure safe and reliable care.”

While there’s no word on how long that may take, it must be said that this situation was completely avoidable. Yet it seems that the province — and to some extent, the MNU — did not see the danger on the horizon.

Just two weeks ago, Jackson told this paper that the provincial cuts to private nursing agencies should not contribute to a nursing shortage in PMH.

“I’m fairly confident that this is going to be a great thing for our health-care system,” Jackson told the Sun on Jan. 7.

But the Opposition’s health critic, Kathleen Cook, voiced her concerns that same day, saying that she was concerned about the existing high vacancy rate in Prairie Mountain Health, and that the provincial plan was “contingent on all of those nurses taking jobs in the public sector.”

Health experts were warning of this possibility months ago. And so did we, on this page, in 2024, shortly after the province first announced its plan to curb spending on private, for-profit nursing agencies.

We suggest both the health minister and the premier need to listen more carefully to dissenting voices, including to the concerns from on the ground staff in rural RHAs like Prairie Mountain Health, because the concerns were clearly valid.

This is not what “fixing health care” is supposed to look like. It’s poor management. And that’s not something that this government can pin on the previous one.