Nurses employed in jails seek incentives deal

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This article was published 31/12/2022 (1323 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

They may work behind bars, but the 90 nurses who attend to the health needs of Manitoba’s inmates don’t feel like they should be punished because they earn their living in the civil service.

They’ve told Health Minister Audrey Gordon they face chronic understaffing — that existed well before the pandemic — career burnout and overwork, and they want the same recruitment and retention incentives the province announced last month for their counterparts who work in hospitals.

“A nurse is a nurse,” said Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union president Kyle Ross, which represents the correctional institution nurses and 42 others at the Manitoba Developmental Centre — which is slated to close in 2024 — who were not included in the Progressive Conservative government’s $200 million “health human resource action plan” rolled out Nov. 10.

Members of the Manitoba Nurses Union were told the plan included new, additional incentives including a “super premium” of an additional $8 an hour for weekend shifts, a $10,000 recruitment/retention incentive paid over two years, a one-time wellness incentive increase of $500 and reimbursement of nurse licence fees.

The MGEU wrote to the health minister Nov. 30, asking for the same deal. It hadn’t received a response.

A government spokesperson said Thursday that Gordon is reviewing the letter.

“Out of respect for the negotiation process, we are working with stakeholders to ensure nurses have access to these benefits regardless of where they are employed,” the spokesperson said.

Without a “level playing field,” Ross said, it will be harder to recruit and retain nurses to work in Manitoba jails — Brandon, Headingley, The Pas, Milner Ridge and Women’s correctional centres, the Winnipeg Remand Centre, Agassiz Youth Centre and the Manitoba Youth Centre.

“Our jails are already understaffed,” said the union president. “I’ve visited almost every jail in this province and when I speak to the nurses in those jails, they’re always working short. They’re always short-staffed,” he said

“Without adding these benefits for our members, it’s going make it a lot harder to recruit and retain people to do these jobs and they’re important jobs. These people need help in those facilities.”

In The Pas, for example, staffing shortages are taking a toll, he said.

“Nurses actually have to come in on the weekends to administer the medication to the inmates because there’s not enough staff to provide a weekend shift for staffing for the nurses there,” he said.

“I think that the population you’re dealing with in a prison is probably a lot more difficult to deal with, a lot more risky, than dealing with the population within the hospital. I know there’s issues in hospital, as well, but I think both jobs are equally valuable. To me, they should be equally valued.”

The concern is there will be an “exodus” of nurses from the civil service to regional health authorities if they’re not treated fairly, the letter to the health minister said.

If jails are left short, then the province may have to rely on private-agency nurses, and that will end up costing taxpayers more, Ross said.

“I think it should be a worry for all Manitobans if they want to bring in private-agency nurses that cost us more, that cost health care more. It’s not a good path to be on. I think the public system and the public people doing these jobs is a far better option.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca