Allied health workers’ union throws support behind NDP

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This article was published 25/09/2023 (743 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew’s $500 million plan to staff up the health-care system was endorsed by the union for allied health workers on Monday.

Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals president Jason Linklater officially backed the NDP’s commitment to add more than 1,000 workers to the province’s hospitals and community clinics over the next four years.

The union represents approximately 6,500 people in more than 40 specialized professions, including those who work as respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, laboratory technicians and mental-health and social workers.

Linklater said the Progressive Conservative government’s promises to allied health workers over the past seven years, including its $400 million health human resources plan, have not materialized.

“When you talk about consulting and how important that is, that process was never taken with the last government,” he said alongside Kinew at a park across from Health Sciences Centre. “Allied health has the ability to offer solutions and we have not had the opportunity to address those solutions with the current government.”

The Tory government announced its own hiring plan in November 2022 with an initial $200 million commitment and promise to add 2,000 workers to the system.

At the time, the MAHCP expressed disappointment with the plan, arguing its membership was left out. In July, the government pumped another $200 million into the plan with programs targeting paramedics.

The increased human resource spending followed the ratification of a new collective agreement by MAHCP after its members went more than five years without a contract.

As part of its four-year human resources plan, the NDP has pledged to target incentives to allied health professionals in rural and northern communities (specifically diagnostic imaging and laboratory technologists; to create allied health positions in promised neighbourhood illness and injury clinics; and to create positions for allied health workers at family medical centres.

“Allied health has always been part of our staffing plan and staffing was our first commitment when we started to talk about health care during this election campaign, because we know that anything we want to do in the health-care system has to start with staff,” Kinew said.

The Fort Rouge candidate said his promise to open three new emergency rooms in Winnipeg will require more allied health workers. He thanked employees who are currently caring for Manitobans.

“Allied health professionals are an integral part of our health-care system here in Manitoba,” he said. “You have taken care of us, and now it’s time for us to take better care of you.”

The NDP has also promised to hire 200 additional emergency medical responders within four years, if the party forms government.

Linklater said there continues to be a staffing crisis among allied health that is driving up wait times for care.

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“Staffing and bodies to do the work is the… most important part before you can even consider implementing change in the system,” he said. “We have to have the human resource element in place to make those changes.”

The NDP maintained its focus on health care to mark the final week of campaigning before the Oct. 3 election.

Kinew, PC Leader Heather Stefanson and Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont are scheduled to participate in two debates this week, including a Brandon Chamber of Commerce event Tuesday morning and a Doctors Manitoba forum Wednesday evening.

A request for comment from the PCs was not returned by deadline.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca