Stop blaming, start listening

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/11/2023 (713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

In his opinion piece published in today’s Sun, Dr. Scott Blyth ends with these two sentences: “Let’s put down our ‘blame fingers’ and start working on this problem now, together. We all deserve better.”

The problem he is referring to is the state of Canada’s health-care system generally, and Manitoba’s in particular. He focuses on the fact that 6.5 million Canadians do not have a family doctor, and asks why the public has not expressed their outrage about the situation.

It could be because many Canadians don’t believe their governments are genuinely listening to their concerns about surgical and diagnostic test wait times, nor about the severe shortage of doctors, nurses, therapists and other health-care professionals.

We have heard plenty of promises from our elected leaders over the past several decades, but we have seen few positive results. There has been lots of talking by politicians about the plight of our health-care system, but too little listening to those who need or provide that care.

That brings us to the Manitoba government’s announcement on Monday that it “will be listening to the ideas, concerns and priorities of front-line health-care workers at a series of in-person conversations to be held across Manitoba.”

Over the next several months, Premier Wab Kinew, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and members of the government caucus will host hour-long, in-person conversations with health-care workers at seven facilities throughout the province, including the Brandon Regional Health Centre. According to the government news release, “Health-care workers employed in those facilities will be invited to attend and engage in an open conversation about challenges, solutions and innovations in health care.”

Kinew says that “This listening tour is about resetting that relationship and collaborating with front-line workers to tackle the challenges we face in health care, together,” while Asagwara claims that it “demonstrates our government’s commitment to improving the culture in health care and working co-operatively to deliver better care to Manitobans.”

Given the many years of failures by both NDP and Progressive Conservative governments to provide better, faster health care to Manitobans, it is easy to be cynical about the government’s motives behind the listening tour, and to be just as skeptical about the results it may accomplish.

After all, many of the health-care problems we currently face in Manitoba are the result of decisions made by previous NDP governments, which Progressive Conservative governments were either unable to fix or made worse.

Beyond that, it will be months before the “listening meetings” are completed, they will last for only one hour, and they will apparently not include managers and administrators, who may also have important perspectives and useful ideas to share.

Finally, we note that the listening tour will only include the premier, health minister and NDP caucus members. Opposition MLAs will apparently be excluded from the meetings, even if the host facility is in their riding.

With all of those factors in mind, many may feel tempted to pre-emptively condemn the listening tour as a partisan public relations exercise, as opposed to something that might improve the quality of health care received by Manitobans.

They might feel that way, but cynicism and finger-pointing doesn’t shorten wait times and improve outcomes. If it did, our health-care system’s problems would have been fixed long ago.

It’s time for us to follow Dr. Blyth’s advice, by stopping the “blame game” and by starting to listen to those who may have ideas that could make a positive difference. There is nothing about this exercise that will harm our health-care system, and we cannot ignore the possibility that it might help.

With that thought in mind, let’s set our cynicism and partisanship aside. Let’s give our newly elected government a reasonable opportunity to reset the relationship with front-line health-care workers, and let’s hope that the listening tour generates results that will improve our health-care system.