One-fifth of PMH nursing jobs vacant: Documents

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This article was published 08/04/2022 (1434 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At least one in five nursing positions are vacant in Prairie Mountain Health as the province continues to pay for private agency nurses.

This is according to documents obtained by the Manitoba NDP through a freedom of information request and released to the media on Friday. The documents show as of Jan. 31, there is a 22 per cent vacancy rate for registered nursing positions in Prairie Mountain Health.

At the Brandon Regional Health Centre alone, the vacancy rate is more than 17 per cent with 70 positions vacant. The Fairview Personal Care Home has a nurse vacancy rate of 22 per cent.

A separate document shows in that same time frame the province spent $7 million to hire private nurses to fill the gap in the regional health authority between September 2021 and January 2022. At Brandon Regional Health Centre, $54,296.19 was spent on private agency nurses. At Fairview PCH, $507,121.07 was spent on private nurses in that same time frame.

Glen Simard, NDP candidate for Brandon East, said the number of vacancies is alarming, especially as the province deals with a pandemic. Not only are nurses working to care for the people of Brandon, they are working to fill empty positions.

He has spoken to nurses and their families in the community and he has heard similar stories, he said. They feel they are not getting the respect and support they need to protect their patients’ health.

The problem isn’t a lack of interest in a nursing career, he said, it’s a lack of nurses getting hired.

“The response [from the PCs] is a Band-Aid. It’s funding for private health care rather than putting that money towards hiring nurses to stay in Brandon and care for the people in Brandon,” he said. “These are professional, well-paying jobs. Not only does it speak to the importance of these people, it also shows we need to respect them.”

He added he is sure nurses would love to move to Brandon to work here, but is dumbfounded over why there are vacancies.

Last November, Health Minister Audrey Gordon announced the province is adding 400 more seats to nursing programs to Manitoba’s nursing programs. It is also allowing third- and fourth-year students paid clinical training hours to put toward future job searches. They are also expediting certification of nurses trained in other jurisdictions to get them into positions in Manitoba faster.

This isn’t enough, Simard said, as the nurses that are already in the field need more supports and above all, respect and confirmation they are being listened to. The people who are in nursing want to be there, but they need to be given an environment where they can care for people properly.

According to a statement from Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew, hiring agency nurses is more expensive than public system nurses, as well as less continuity of care. This leads to patients having poorer health outcomes.

“Families in Westman and the Parkland want to know there are nurses at the bedside when they need it,” said Kinew. “And they want the government to spend their tax dollars on building up our public health-care system —one that delivers care to every person, no matter how much money they have. But the PCs have created a nursing crisis in these communities. They are throwing money at the private sector as a Band-Aid solution that actually makes things worse. The PCs cut health care and created a crisis, but the NDP is ready to fix the damage they have caused.”

Having to hire nurses from private agencies to temporarily fill vacancies is not new, nor are the difficulties of filling those vacancies, said Prairie Mountain Health CEO Brian Schoonbaert.

Existing challenges have been exacerbated by problems brought on by the pandemic, including staff absenteeism due to COVID-19 symptoms and exposure, needing additional staff due to increased patient demand, staff being moved to help with the pandemic response.

“This has caused an increased reliance on agency nursing,” he said. “We remain committed to reducing reliance on agency staffing through initiatives to improve retention of nurses currently working in the health system and recruitment of new nurses into positions within our region.”

A request for comment from the minister of health’s office was not returned by press time.

— with files from The Brandon Sun

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