Scrap silo mentality and create a feasible plan

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/01/2025 (575 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Politicians should have to take the same oath as doctors: First, do no harm.

And a lot of harm could have been prevented and future harm avoided if there was a legitimate plan in place to fix health care.

A plan that looked at all the interdependencies. That looked at what needed to be done immediately, less urgently and in the long term. Then they should have executed it right away.

This business of opening some beds here and building a personal care home there is a silo mentality that can’t fix much. It’s drops in the proverbial bucket. In the absence of a plan, we get one-offs. They’re not working in tandem with anything or achieving any systemic change.

Nobody even knows what the government’s plans are. They keep saying they’re going to fix health care. That’s great. But how? Because health care in Manitoba continues to get worse under the NDP leadership. Offering free birth control is mere window dressing when people are failing to get the care they need.

I can say in my 15 years of being sick and previously having worked in health care since 2000, that things have never been this bad. And yes, I know, the NDP inherited a dysfunctional system.

But they’ve been in power for more than a year and it’s worse than ever before. We can’t even afford overtime for nurses and health-care aides. And that’s with months left in the fiscal year. The NDP signed new contracts with nurses and support staff they clearly could not afford.

They may have avoided strikes, but this is impacting care. We’re operating at times without baseline staffing. We can’t afford needed equipment. They’re cutting services like recreation. We ask for more staff and are told it’s impossible. Workloads are unsafe and unmanageable, and ultimately it’s patients who pay the price.

There are residents in tears because they’ve missed their weekly (yes, weekly) bath twice in a row. People stuck in bed who normally are dressed and up in wheelchairs. People not being turned as frequently as they should be because there aren’t enough aides to stick to their turning schedule. Being fed cold food because there aren’t enough people to feed residents when the trays come up hot. We’re talking basics — but important stuff.

I think a strategy doesn’t exist because government doesn’t know how to fix this. In that case, do what smart politicians do: hire talented people who can help you create a plan and then execute it. No one will be upset or think poorly of you.

Because continuing to do one-offs and taking beds from one program to give to another doesn’t accomplish anything. It’s just to make it seem like you’re doing something. The way these beds are announced is disingenuous. The public often thinks they are net new, not knowing another program is losing beds to open up beds for the program getting more.

For instance, when it was announced last August that transitional-care beds were being added, the government failed to mention half a unit of rehabilitation beds at Deer Lodge Centre were being closed to provide those beds.

Now we’re causing delays for people in hospitals who are waiting for rehab beds. Congratulations — you just created another bottleneck and further contributed to access block (being admitted to the ER with no bed available).

It’s like the announcement of 800 orthopedic surgeries in Selkirk. Something else has to go to free up operating-room slates for those surgeries. Also, these patients need beds in which to recover. So who is being displaced? It’s a fair question to ask. Because if we’re driving up wait times for one type of surgeries to help speed up another, it’s counterproductive.

We need net new and increased capacity, not just stealing from Peter to pay Paul. Otherwise we’re just shifting problems.

That’s a good adjective for the philosophy of our government on this issue: shifty.

Face it, plans aren’t sexy. You can’t cut a ribbon. The premier can’t post photo-ops on his beloved social media accounts. He can have a press conference though. There’s still glory the government can garner from developing and executing a plan.

What scares me is what the future holds. We are on the precipice of a crisis in terms of demand for health services due to our aging population.

We are not prepared or equipped to handle this surge. If we think things are bad now and beds are scarce, just wait to see how much worse it can and will get.

The time to prepare was years ago. I hate to be fatalistic but there won’t be enough long-term care beds to meet demand. We’ll need more resources for services like home care so people can age in place.

But where will we find these resources? We already can’t afford services and wages, and we can’t find the people to staff what we already have.

Is it too late to save health care from imploding? I fear it might be. It’s too late for Chad Giffin, the poor man who died recently waiting in the Health Sciences Centre emergency room. I worry about the consequences of this mismanagement.

I know how much it affects my life and the lives of other residents here. Almost every day there are stories about people being harmed by the dysfunction in our health-care system. The carnage is real.

There’s also the toll this dysfunction is taking on our providers. Health-care workers are incredibly demoralized by working conditions and the state of affairs.

They feel no one is listening to them. People are burning out. A recent survey showed 30 per cent of nurses age 35 and under plan on leaving the profession in the next year.

A plan is long overdue. This isn’t a library book — it’s people’s health and well-being. Hire some smart people, craft a plan and start making actual progress.

And soon. Please.

Shawna (Shoshana) Forester Smith is a chronically ill, disabled Ojibwe writer and health-care advocate who lives on a chronic-care unit at Deer Lodge Centre.

shawna.forestersmith@freepress.mb.ca