(AGENPARL) – ven 22 novembre 2024 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
WHAT WE HEARD, WHAT WE DID, AND WHAT WE ARE DOING
What we heard:
The Manitoba government has heard from hundreds of frontline health-care workers across
the province on concerns, issues and solutions for the health-care system. Including:
Participants pointed to staffing and strained capacity as the driving causes of many issues
in the health-care system. Many emphasized the need for government to continue its
efforts for retention of current staff and recruitment of new staff.
Participants expressed burnout and concerns around work-life balance. Overall
improvements to the health-care system, including recruiting and retaining more frontline
staff, will help these symptoms in the long term and more mentorship and support
resources will help in the short term.
Participants expressed sometimes feeling unsafe at work or concerned about the amount
of safety measures at their workplace. Some facilities would benefit from updated security
infrastructure, additional work safety procedures, and more security personnel.
Participants expressed concern about not having the right beds available for patients,
causing long waits in emergency rooms and delays in discharging patients with the right
supports.
Many shared that they feel unheard by management and advocated for frontline voices to
be taken seriously when discussing solutions. Often, participants felt ignored or
disrespected by health-care leadership. They asked for a shift in the culture of health care
to value frontline voices and make it patient focused.
What we did:
In one year, the Manitoba government has made significant progress on addressing the
concerns that matter most to frontline workers including:
Hired 873 net-new health-care workers to the frontlines across the province and offered
every new graduate a job in Manitoba.
Negotiated a fair new deal for health-care support staff.
Reset the relationship with nurses with a fair contract after years without one and designed
a long-term plan to increase the number of nurses in public health care.
Responded directly to safety concerns heard in listening tour sessions with actions like
improving Safe Walk services for staff leaving their shifts and installing security cameras at
the Grace Hospice.
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Responded to frustrations from frontline staff about sharing employment opportunities by
directing service delivery organizations to post vacancy positions regularly.
Invested $310 million toward staff recruitment, retention and training including increasing
training seats for physicians, nurses, physician assistants, occupational therapists and
physiotherapists.
Frontline workers shared the idea of expanding hospital discharge to seven days a week.
Worked with allied health professionals to add necessary staff on weekends to get patients
home sooner.
Added 201 new fully staffed beds across the system to help reduce access block in ERs,
including surgical, medicine, acute care, transitional care unit and Pediatric intensive care
unit and ICU beds.
Reopened 78 personal care home (PCH) beds to allow patients to be discharged with the
appropriate supports in place.
Sent a letter to every health-care graduate in the province asking them to continue working
in Manitoba.
Reinforced the need for change in health-care culture starting from the top of leadership.
Refreshed board chairs and board members at Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional
Health Authority to start.
Worked with service delivery organizations to prepare a comprehensive strategy for
respiratory virus season that focused on surge planning and increasing capacity in ICU to
ensure system is prepared for annual pressures on hospitals and staff. Expanded My
Health Team service into northern Manitoba to relieve pressure on existing staff and
provide holistic resources for patients.
Helped nurses return to work in the public system and took steps to remove barriers to
renewing or obtaining nursing licences.
Hired and trained 91 institutional safety officers to keep health-care workers and patients
safe, with more being hired in the coming year.
What we are doing:
Fixing health care is an ongoing project. The Manitoba government is collaborating with healthcare partners and frontline workers throughout the province to keep delivering on better care.
Some of these efforts include:
Reviewing opportunities for permanent weapon detectors at Health Sciences Centre
Winnipeg emergency department, after a successful pilot program.
Bringing more internationally educated health-care workers to the bedside by expediting
the Nursing Re-Entry Program.
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Planning a mandatory workshop to bring in system leaders and frontline staff to have
constructive conversations about changing the culture in health care.
Creating positions and hiring midwives in the Interlake and northern Manitoba, to bring
birthing services closer to home. Returning diabetes prevention services in Thompson, by
restoring footcare services.
Adding a mobile MRI to the north, providing better access to diagnostics to people in
Thompson, The Pas and surrounding First Nation communities, including training and
hiring of MRI technologists.
Making work-life balance easier for frontline staff with investments in child-care resources.
Opening 102 more staffed beds in the next year throughout the province.
Reducing strain in emergency rooms by building a new emergency room at the Victoria
General Hospital and in Eriksdale and renovating the existing emergency room at
Children’s Hospital.
Helping to reduce access block in hospitals by increasing long-term care beds with a
commitment to build a new personal care home in Lac du Bonnet.
Working with health-care workers to design a new strategy for emergency wait times.