Asagwara’s ignorance is no excuse

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/12/2024 (476 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s too soon to tell if Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson is the proverbial canary in the coal mine or a nurse who cried wolf, but one thing is clear: she has created yet another health-care headache for the Kinew government.

On Monday, Jackson told reporters that MNU members currently working in Prairie Mountain and Southern health regions were told last week to brace for budgetary cost-cutting. “Since last week,” she said, “I’ve been hearing from nurses that are saying they’ve been told that they’re going be looking at higher nurse-patient loads, that there’s going to be discussion prior to overtime being approved.”

She said that she expects the other health regions in the province will have to do the same. She alleged that “This is a planned approach to cut costs at the direction of the government” and that “I believe they have been given very clear direction that they must cut money in their budget, they must find savings.”

She added that “There’s been a memo sent out from the employer saying that they’re no longer allowing nurses to sort of say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll pick up that shift Saturday on overtime … We know that there has been direction given and it’s certainly going to affect the front line and it is going to affect patient care.”

Those are incendiary comments, but are they accurate? Or, is Jackson needlessly raising anxiety in a province that is already grappling with soaring health-care wait times, a province-wide doctor and nurse shortage, and planned ER closures or reduced hours of operation at hospitals in rural and northern areas during the holiday season?

In response to Jackson’s allegations, health minister Uzoma Asagwara says regional health authorities were directed months ago to cut administrative costs by eight per cent and redirect the money to front-line care. The minister added that “I could not have been more clear that we need to ensure that there are no clinical impacts, that the front lines will be not only protected but enhanced by these efforts.”

In 2023-24, the total administrative costs for Shared Health, the province’s five regional health authorities and CancerCare Manitoba added up to a staggering $307.6 million, or 4.79 per cent of total health-care operating costs. That’s a lot of money being spent on health-care bureaucracy, in a province with fewer than 1.5 million citizens.

Viewed in that context, it is far from surprising that the Kinew government would want to re-direct eight per cent of that figure – almost $25 million – from health-care administrators to the doctors, nurses and other professionals who are working on the front lines of health care in our province.

That sounds completely reasonable, and it is in line with the NDP’s campaign promise to divert health-care dollars from the bureaucracy to improving care. The problem, Jackson says, is that administrative costs were already cut by the former Progressive Conservative government, and that “I’m not sure how much more there is to cut at the bureaucracy level in some of our regions.”

She says that “The message has sort of filtered down from the executive team in the region to nurses through directors, through managers, that there is definitely a look at how savings can be achieved.”

Jackson’s allegations are as yet uncorroborated and appear to be based on hearsay, but they cannot be ignored. If nursing shifts are going unfilled to avoid overtime costs, that is cause for serious concern, as are any other cost-cutting measures that potentially compromise the quality of care that patients receive.

Asagwara says it is “unacceptable” if any health-care leader is not following the province’s “very clear direction.” It is equally unacceptable, however, for the province’s health minister to be oblivious as to whether that is actually happening in hospitals and other care facilities.

On this issue, the minister’s ignorance is no excuse. Orders can be given, but they mean nothing in the absence of measures to ensure they have been carried out as intended. Asagwara reportedly issued the “very clear” cost-cutting directive months ago, yet doesn’t know if it is being followed; doesn’t know if almost $25 million in savings are available for re-direction to improve patient care.

That, too, is unacceptable. It’s time for the minister and senior health department officials to pick up the phone and find out what’s happening in the province’s health-care facilities.

Either that, or call Darlene Jackson. She seems to know more about what’s happening on the health-care front lines than our rookie health minister.