Jackson wants action on nurses’ concerns

The Manitoba Nurses Union is criticizing the provincial government for not taking nurses’ concerns seriously enough and continues to flag key issues relating to safety and workplace culture in Prairie Mountain Health.

Union president Darlene Jackson said Manitoba nurses aren’t seeing a lot of action as a result of the NDP government’s listening tour with front-line workers in the health-care system.

“It was a lot of talk and a lot of listening, but maybe not so much hearing what has been said,” Jackson said.

“Nurses are a little bit jaded from that experience.”

The NDP government launched its listening tour in November 2023 to hear feedback from health-care workers and “rebuild a relationship that was damaged by the previous government’s mismanagement and cuts,” according to a news release from late last year.

Earlier this week, the nurses union made a social media post calling out the provincial government and the opposition, saying the politicians “must start acting like the stakes are what they are: life and death.”

The post comes after the Thompson General Hospital was grey-listed due to escalating violence.

Nurses have been voicing their concerns about heavy workloads, nurse-to-patient ratios, workplace culture and providing safer patient care, but they aren’t seeing enough change, Jackson said.

“We don’t feel like we’re at the table. We don’t feel like we’re part of the team, and everything we suggest … just gets pushed out of the way,” the union president said.

As of last month, there were 650 vacant nursing positions in Prairie Mountain Health, with licensed practical nurses accounting for 353 of those positions and registered nurses for 273, according to data from the Manitoba Nurses Union.

There were also 11 nurse practitioner vacancies and 13 registered psychiatric nurse vacancies, the data shows. Prairie Mountain Health has a total of 2,174 positions for nurses.

Jackson said she doesn’t believe the province has done enough to improve workplace culture for nurses, which she believes ties back to the 30 per cent vacancy rate in the Brandon and Westman area.

There won’t be a “magnet” attracting nurses to that region until nurses feel valued by their employer and can speak up against issues affecting workplace culture free from the fear of retribution from a manager, she said.

Jackson said nurses take the brunt of violence and abuse from patients.

Prairie Mountain Health hired 16 new institutional safety officers to patrol the Brandon Regional Health Centre in January, who were trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation strategies.

In March, a 21-year-old male who required medical attention became belligerent and threatening with hospital staff in the Brandon hospital emergency room before leaving the facility. The following month, an emergency room nurse was choked and nearly stabbed with a needle by a patient.

Jackson said she would like the province to add institutional safety officers in Swan River and Dauphin because these health-care facilities are also seeing violence against nurses.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara did not respond to the Sun’s request for comment on Wednesday before press time.

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said issues the union has identified fall back on the need to retain nurses, which should be the government’s primary focus right now, she said.

“If people can jump across the border in Saskatchewan and have a better working environment or more flexible working conditions, they’re going to take it. So, we need to make sure that Manitoba is competitive with other jurisdictions when it comes to what nurses are looking for,” said Cook, who is also the MLA for Roblin.

Since April 2024, the province has hired 481 net new nurses, the province said in a news release earlier this year. The NDP government said it has added 1,100 new net nurses since being elected two years ago with 342 of those being hired to work in the Prairie Mountain Health region.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com