Time for the premier, nurse profession to make up

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 07/04/2020 (2005 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Does Manitoba have enough nurses to weather a severe outbreak of COVID-19? The province won’t say for sure, but if recent bulletins from Shared Health Manitoba are any indication, there is some cause for concern.

As is the case with other aspects of the COVID-19 response, Shared Health, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and public-health officials have been cagey when asked about whether there will be enough nurses to handle a potential influx of critically ill patients.

The WRHA keeps up-to-date statistics on nursing vacancies but guards it closely. After many inquiries and some significant negotiation, it released figures to the Manitoba Nurses Union late last week that showed vacancies up to March 22. In short, the numbers show only modest progress in filling vacant positions.

The latest data shows that across all Winnipeg hospitals and health-care facilities, 14.2 per cent of all approved, full-time nursing positions were vacant. That is only slightly better than the picture taken two months earlier, in January, when 15.1 per cent of nursing positions were vacant. That is surely not the situation the province wanted to be in with the possible onslaught to come.

It should be noted that the steady level of vacancies does not mean there hasn’t been an increase in the total number of nurses. In February, the province graduated 33 nurses from a specialized critical-care training course and, according to the WRHA, they were put to work right away. Anecdotally, Shared Health has also claimed that the number of nurses has gone up.

If that’s so, why hasn’t there been a greater improvement in the vacancy rate? To prepare for COVID-19, some facilities have been authorized to hire more nurses. Put another way, the number of nursing positions has gone up at the same time as the number of nurses.

Shared Health has issued several bulletins and news releases seeking more nurses or asking nurses to work more hours.

On April 1, a request was made for all nurses who retired in the last five years to “consider joining the provincial fight against COVID-19.” Provisions have been made for an expedited recertification process so retirees can return to work. That bulletin followed one on March 31, when Shared Health broadcast its need for RNs with critical-care experience to take on additional ICU shifts in Winnipeg and Brandon.

On the face of it, it seems unusual that Shared Health would have to communicate with nurses via public bulletin or release, particularly when it claims to have an open channel to the Manitoba Nurses Union. However, when you consider how strained the relationship is between the province and its nurses, the awkwardness of these communiques starts to make more sense.

Although there were thousands of health-care workers affected by Premier Brian Pallister’s massive reorganization of Winnipeg hospitals, nurses bore the brunt. The decision to close three community hospital emergency departments, and shuffle a host of other departments, caused significant turmoil within the nursing community. Over the years, nurses had gained hard-fought control over where and when they work; those gains were largely trampled by the decision to shuffle the hospital deck.

It also revealed a problem with the basic composition of the nursing community in Winnipeg.

Winnipeg has more than 8,600 nurses, which is, theoretically, enough to cover all shifts at all hospitals. However, nearly two-thirds of those nurses work part time. Although that does provide a lot of flexibility when it comes to scheduling, it also reflects that nurses expect some semblance of control over when and where they work.

No one would suggest that nurses won’t step up to meet the challenges of a pandemic. As is the case all over the world, nurses have always been the first line of defence against public-health crises, and often suffer the greatest overall losses as a result. But this is an unique situation, where a pandemic arrived in Manitoba at the same time that nurses and the province were still very much at odds with each other.

Last week, nurses marked the third anniversary of the expiry of their last contract. Like all public servants in Manitoba, they have been subject to a de facto wage freeze. No one has the time to talk wages and benefits right now, but it’s becoming exceedingly obvious that nurses who can work more hours or who are willing to rejoin the workforce to lend a hand need some sort of gesture.

Social distancing eliminates the possibility for face-to-face dialogue. But clearly, either Pallister or Health Minister Cameron Friesen need to reach out and ask for some help. The stakes are much too high to let the pre-existing estrangement that existed between nurses and the Tory government linger during this, the crisis of a lifetime.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca