Brandon hospital getting 6 new ICU nurses

Six nurses will begin working in Brandon’s Intensive Care Unit this spring as part of a record-breaking cohort of 45 nurses taking critical care training in Manitoba, the health minister announced Monday.

The nurses started training on Jan. 5 at four hospitals in southern Manitoba and will finish their program on April 23, with the next cohort starting training the following week.

“We heard that we needed more critical care capacity, we heard that these seats need to be filled, and we heard loud and clear from LPNs that they wanted access to this opportunity as well,” Uzoma Asagwara said during a news conference at the Grace Hospital in Winnipeg.

The ICU nurses training at the Brandon Regional Health Centre will work in the critical care centre once it opens, a spokesperson for Prairie Mountain Health said in a statement.

The new building has been under construction since the fall of 2022, with staff tours beginning late last year.

“As always, Prairie Mountain Health is continually involved in recruitment and retention efforts for health-care professionals,” the spokesperson said.

The regional health authority plans to open 10 of 16 intensive care unit beds and half of its 30-bed internal medicine unit through a staggered approach, CEO Treena Slate previously told the Sun.

The 24-hour ICU is the only ICU between Winnipeg and Regina and plays a vital role in ensuring people in southwestern Manitoba have access to life-saving care, she said.

Asagwara said the new centre will open beds as more staff are hired to work there.

“We’re going to make sure that, you know, as many nurses as we possibly can, know about the opportunities in Prairie Mountain Health,” they said.

The province is encouraging nurses to visit sites in rural Manitoba and train existing nurses in rural areas, the minister said.

More than 80 nurses applied for the ICU training program’s most recent intake, which is “phenomenal,” Asagwara said.

“We also know that even though maybe not every single applicant is ready right now, that it’s important to support them and make sure that they can get ready,” Asagwara said, adding that site managers have lists of nurses who are interested in the next round of training.

In Winnipeg, 18 nurses are receiving the ICU training at St. Boniface Hospital, with 15 nurses at the Health Sciences Centre and six at Grace Hospital.

Historically, critical care positions have had the highest vacancy rates, but the province’s recruitment and retention office is building on this momentum to ensure program seats continue to be filled, Asagwara said.

Each program cohort has a maximum training capacity of 55 nurses and trains a total of 165 nurses per year, they said.

Program participants taking the ICU training fluctuates every year and typically ranges from six to 35 nurses, said Chantal Packulak, the co-ordinator for critical care education at HSC.

“We’re really trying to promote the course,” she said at the news conference.

“We’re trying to encourage staff who may not feel ready to come and talk to us about it, encouraging staff to do shadow shifts, to see if a career in ICU nursing is something that they would enjoy.”

Training takes place three times a year with intakes around January, May and September and lasts about 15 weeks, Packulak said.

The program focuses on the advanced learning of cardiovascular and respiratory skills and working in clinical settings.

“The ICU nurses that work every day on the floor are so very vital to the orientation and just integration of new ICU nurses within the units,” she said.

Nurses get paid while completing the training and must have one year of acute care experience, Packulak said.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said Monday’s announcement was a positive step forward.

“We just have to remember that these are not 45 newly hired nurses. They are probably 45 nurses who are already in the system who have moved into critical care, but it’s still positive having more nurses in critical care,” she said.

“We do know that that is an area that we do need bolstered, especially when we’re seeing things like an influx of patients during respiratory (virus) season.”

Jackson said she wants to see the province move forward with implementing minimum nurse-patient ratios across the health system as soon as possible.

Asagwara said the nurses have been offered jobs before their training is completed so they can start providing care to the sickest Manitobans as quick as possible.

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew thanked ICU nurses who are nearing program completion and health care staff for their hard work on the frontlines.

“I think so many of us have these stories of loved ones, people that we know very well going through some tough times, and it’s the person at the bedside providing that one-to-one care that makes a difference in so many of those stories for the better,” he said.

The NDP government has recruited 1,100 net new nurses across Manitoba, with 51 health-care workers added to the Brandon Regional Health Centre, since October 2023.

» tadamski@brandonsun.com, with files from the Winnipeg Free Press