Grey-listing hospitals sends strong message

For the first time in the 45-year history of the Manitoba Nurses Union, two hospitals in this province have been grey-listed at the same time. That alone should stop Manitobans in their tracks.

Grey-listing is not a step nurses take lightly. It is a public signal to their colleagues that an employer is failing to maintain safe and professional working conditions — and a warning to think twice before accepting work there.

That Thompson General Hospital now joins Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre on that list should be seen for what it is: an alarm bell about deteriorating safety inside Manitoba’s largest hospital and one of its most remote hospitals.

Nurses at Thompson General voted 97 per cent in favour of grey-listing after years of escalating violence, including a stabbing in the emergency waiting room in September. The RCMP were called to the facility more than 550 times in 2024, according to the MNU.

When front-line nurses — the people who hold the system together shift after shift — declare their own workplace unsafe, it signals deeper systemic failure.

For Thompson, this is not about one incident or a single bad night. It reflects an environment where staff no longer feel protected, patients no longer feel secure and the institution’s ability to deliver care has been compromised.

The vote does not mean nurses will withdraw services. It is a step intended to force the employer to act. But even the hint that colleagues may discourage others from taking work in Thompson should raise concerns for a hospital already dependent on contract and agency staff. If conditions worsen, recruitment — already one of the North’s steepest challenges — could become even more difficult.

That would threaten the stability of health services not just in Thompson but across the Northern Health Region. The question now is whether the response from the province will be swift enough to meet the urgency of the moment.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says institutional safety officers could be stationed at Thompson General Hospital within weeks. That is a promising start.

But even the minister acknowledges this will take time — time the Thompson hospital doesn’t have the luxury of. Nurses are working in unsafe conditions today. Patients are waiting in that emergency room today.

And as Thompson Mayor Colleen Smook notes, hiring and training security personnel cannot be accomplished overnight.

Introducing “secure and monitored access” by Dec. 1 is a step forward, but the fact the hospital has reached the point where metal detectors are being considered is a stark reminder of how far conditions have deteriorated.

Keep in mind, the worsening problem of nurse safety is not isolated to Winnipeg or Thompson facilities. While there is currently no call for grey-listing the Brandon Regional Health Centre, nursing staff at the Brandon facility have also had their own safety concerns this year.

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

And these two incidents occurred after Prairie Mountain Health hired 16 new security guards (Institutional Safety Officers) to patrol the BRHC in January of this year, who were trained in crisis intervention and de-escalation techniques. Two more trainees were expected to join them a few weeks later.

The Manitoba Nurses Union has been sounding the alarm on this issue for months, after a survey of union members released in July showed that nearly half of its 1,500 respondents said workplace culture had worsened from the previous year.

“The level of violence we’re seeing now against nurses was absolutely unheard of 10 to 15 years ago. Now it’s a commonplace event,” MNU president Darlene Jackson told the Sun this past July. “Nurses being treated disrespectfully as if they’re replaceable and dispensable by employers is not acceptable.”

Any government that is serious about rebuilding Manitoba’s strained health-care system must start by protecting the people who work inside it. That means more than job postings and promises. It requires sustained investment, better staffing ratios, modernized infrastructure and clear accountability when security measures fail.

It also means giving northern communities more say in how their hospitals operate, including greater flexibility and incentives to recruit and retain local staff.

The province’s new commitments are welcome. But they must be accompanied by transparency. Manitobans deserve to know how quickly security officers will be in place, what additional safety protocols are being implemented and how the province will measure whether conditions are improving.

Thompson’s nurses have lit a flare. It is now up to the province and regional health officials to respond with the urgency the situation demands.

Two grey-listed hospitals should be more than a warning. They should be a turning point.

» Winnipeg Free Press and The Brandon Sun