Rural health staffing in crisis: union

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This article was published 18/07/2024 (416 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The union that represents more than 6,600 health-care workers in rural Manitoba who are without a contract has demanded better wages and a phasing out of private-agency employees to help address chronic staff shortages.

The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union released 10 recommendations Thursday to retain and hire more staff in support and technical professional roles in hospitals, care homes or other settings.

MGEU report

 

“This government made an election commitment to fix health care. To keep this promise, they must invest in health-care teams,” said MGEU president Kyle Ross. “Health-care support staff and technical professional health-care providers deserve the same respect and recognition as their nurse and doctor colleagues.”

The MGEU said the staffing crisis is close to dangerous levels and threatens the quality of care, while putting employees at greater risk of burnout or injury.

Union members who work for three regional health authorities — Interlake-Eastern, Prairie Mountain and Southern — have been without a contract since April.

They include health-care aides, home-care attendants, dietitians, occupational therapists and speech language pathologists.

The union hopes to resolve some of the issues in ongoing contract talks.

“Health-care support staff and technical professional health-care providers deserve the same respect and recognition as their nurse and doctor colleagues.”–MGEU president Kyle Ross

More than 700 positions are vacant in the health-care aide and home-care programs in Interlake-Eastern and Prairie Mountain, the report said.

In Prairie Mountain, 16 facilities have health-care aide vacancy rates of more than 40 per cent, said Ross.

Vacancies are rising at a time when patient needs are greater, staff are under increasing pressure and the senior population is growing, the MGEU said.

St. Andrews resident Joanne Brown said she hired private home-care staff to assist her elderly mother and father due to gaps in the service run by Interlake-Eastern.

“They’re so short-staffed that there were constant cancellations and people not showing up,” said Brown.

She said she felt bad for the public system attendants, because they were overworked and given limited time to assist her parents.

“We’re going to have a real big problem in the next couple of years taking care of our elderly population, because there are not enough people in home care as a career,” she said. “The nursing homes are feeling it, too. The system can’t be fixed if there aren’t enough people to fix the system.”

A health-care worker in Interlake-Eastern, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity, said staff are forced to rush or do more with less, resulting in low morale and people leaving the sector.

The person said they feel exhausted at the end of a shift.

“(From) the time that you start to when you leave, you’re running all day,” said the worker. “I’m (staying) for the patients and my co-workers. They’re part of my life.”

The employee said wages must become more competitive to recruit and retain workers. The MGEU said health facilities in some communities are competing with fast-food restaurants or banks which offer similar pay.

The report said hourly wages for health-care aides and home-care attendants start at $20.09, while those for laundry aides begin at $17.05 per hour.

“We need to make health care an employer of choice if we want to staff these jobs up and have a good quality health-care system,” said Ross.

The report blamed stagnant wages, deteriorating working conditions and minimal recruitment and retention efforts for the crisis.

The MGEU said the provincial system is in “chaos” and is struggling to recover from wide cuts, wage freezes and restructuring under the former Tory government, and the strain of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ross said the NDP inherited a difficult situation from the Tories when sworn in last October, but it must take swift action.

“I’m not under the delusion that they’ll fix it in two months or a year,” he said. “It’s going to take time, but we have to start building and taking those steps forward now.”

Ross called on the province to begin phasing out private-agency staffing, arguing the system has become too reliant on those workers to fill gaps. He said it is a wasteful and ineffective strategy that compromises care.

“When you bring in agency (staff), they’re very rarely familiar with the location they’re working in,” said Ross. “They don’t know the patients’ needs. (When) you have to support this agency worker, it takes away from other staff to be able to effectively do their work.”

The MGEU said spending on private-agency aides in Interlake-Eastern and Prairie Mountain has soared to almost $30 million in 2023-24 from $8 million in 2021-22 — with half of it going toward travel costs.

Ross said the money would be better spent hiring more public staff or increasing wages for jobs that are difficult to fill.

Other recommendations include a system-wide retention strategy, more full-time positions, training opportunities in more communities, changes to funding models and a halt to restructuring.

The MGEU wants the NDP to legislate care home-staffing ratios to align with the province’s goal of 4.1 hours of direct care per day for residents.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the MGEU’s recommendations are in line with the government’s priorities to retain, recruit and train staff, and provide sustainable funding for the system.

They said the province is negotiating fair contracts with unions to help address concerns about wages or working conditions, and wants to work with regional health authorities and employers to reduce Manitoba’s dependency on private agencies.

Asagwara said the NDP is hoping to bring private staff back to the public system.

“This isn’t an overnight fix, and there’s no silver bullet to foxing the health-care challenges that were created by the previous PC approach,” they said. “We are doing this work each and every day so that we see the benefits in our health-care system day over day over day.”

Interlake-Eastern has several initiatives to retain and recruit staff, including an uncertified health-care aide training program that produced 50 graduates in five communities in the 2023 fiscal year, said Julene Sawatzky, executive lead of human resources.

The program is being expanded this year to graduate 80 students. Sawatzky said it has helped to reduce vacancy rates at local sites.

The RHA is hoping to offer a certified program in high schools, starting with a pilot class in the fall of next year.

“We appreciate the MGEU’s concerns and share their desire to build a better health-care system for both patients and our staff,” Sawatzky said in a statement. “Our efforts, combined with broader provincial recruitment and retention efforts, support these shared goals.”

Prairie Mountain has also implemented several activities or initiatives to help train, recruit and retain staff, said spokeswoman Lara Bossert.

They include new positions in the last two years, hiring internationally educated nurses, practicums in facilities, support for people pursuing the health-care aide challenge program to obtain certified status and education loans for staff who are furthering their careers.

— With files from Nicole Buffie

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca