Province, nurses must take charge after study finds racism exists in Winnipeg ERs

Opinion

If you want to know why we never seem to make progress in battling systemic racism, events this week provide some compelling answers.

On Tuesday, a landmark study by Shared Health showed adult African/Black and Indigenous patients wait longer for treatment in Winnipeg emergency rooms than patients of other races and ethnicities.

Black patients waited the longest on average at Shared Health-run Health Sciences Centre (5.5 hours) and Indigenous patients waited the second longest (5.3 hours). White patients, as a point of comparison, on average waited 4.1 hours, a full hour less.

As well, 36.5 per cent of adult Indigenous patients, and 30.4 per cent of African/Black patients left the HSC ER without having been examined or treated. About 20 per cent of white patients left before being seen.

The report was prepared by Shared Health in collaboration with the University of Manitoba’s Ongomiizwin Indigenous Institute of Health and Healing, and the George & Fay Yee Centre for Healthcare Innovation. It was based on analysis of more than 600,000 patients who agreed to self-identify their race and ethnicity.

The findings are not necessarily seismic in their essence; research into the racial bias in the health-care system has been going on for decades. This is, however, one of the most precise studies of its kind.

Report author Dr. Marcia Anderson correctly noted the report contains “hard truths.” Although not mentioned in the report, among those hard truths is the undeniable fact that the health-care system is horrible at responding to the issue of systemic racism.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara greeted the report with a recommendation that all emergency department staff undergo cultural safety and anti-racism training. However, the minister declined to say which training, when it would start and did not indicate whether the affected personnel would be allowed to undertake it during normal working hours.

That drew immediate criticism from the Manitoba Nurses Union.

MNU president Darlene Jackson said the collective agreement clearly says that nurses must be given time off from normal duties to undergo any required educational programming. Jackson warned that because Asagwara’s comments were only a recommendation, there is an implication the nurses should do the training on their own time. She said she was concerned about consequences for those who don’t.

If we take a hard look at what both Asagwara and Jackson are saying, a rather unflattering picture comes into focus.

If the minister takes no issue with the findings, and agrees that the issue is fundamentally important, then why wasn’t more done to formulate an actual plan to address gaps in anti-racism training? And why wouldn’t Asagwara make this kind of training mandatory, even if the fine details of delivering it have yet to be worked out?

It should be said that ‘how’ and ‘when’ and ‘paid for by whom’ are all good questions. However, Jackson and the MNU need to ensure their concerns do not obscure their commitment to combating systemic racism. Right now, the union has created the impression it is only interested in building a list of reasons why they shouldn’t get involved.

Overall, it’s a bad look for a health-care system that had the courage to, at the very least, dig into patient data to uncover the hard truths. But the mad dash for details, and lack of any sense of collaboration between the province, the health authorities and groups like the MNU, makes everyone look rather incompetent.

There is also a renewed concern about whether this is just another provincial directive unleashed upon nurses without adequate negotiation.

The former Progressive Conservative government rattled the very foundations of Winnipeg’s hospital system by force-feeding nurses a major restructuring of emergency rooms and specialty surgical programs.

Apparently unaware, or unconcerned, that nurses had fought long and hard to have some control over where and when they worked, the PC government changed the entire structure of Winnipeg’s hospital network. Nurses that had worked in departments and programs in hospitals for years were suddenly told they were relocating.

Nurses at suburban hospitals were suddenly faced with the prospect of moving to one of the larger, core-area hospitals. Carefully structured family lives were thrown into chaos.

Not surprising, then, that the nurses refused to get with the Tory program. Older nurses retired early; younger nurses fled the public system for private nursing agencies where they were paid better and had total control over where and when they worked. The same agencies that provide staff back to an understaffed public system at a premium rate.

Premier Wab Kinew and his health minister have repeatedly promised they would manage health care differently. Although more details need to come out, the haphazard response to the issue of systemic racism and the conflict with the MNU suggest the New Democrats may be repeating tragic history.

The province and its unions have acknowledged that this is a real and important issue. What Manitobans need now is someone to take charge and show real progress, not just acknowledgement.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca