Rebuilding trust no easy task

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 06/11/2023 (672 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Of all the health-care-related promises issued by Manitoba’s New Democrats during their relatively straightforward but inarguably effective election campaign, this one might be the most direct, as well as one of the most difficult to achieve:

The pledge to regain the trust of those who work in the province’s health-care sector.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines trust as “assured reliance on the character, ability, strength or truth of someone or something.” It’s a quality that requires time and considerable effort to build, but can be very quickly dismantled.

The most recent unravelling of the relationship between government and health-care workers began in earnest shortly after the election of the Brian Pallister-led Progressive Conservatives in 2016. Immediately upon assuming office, Pallister embarked on a massive reorganization of health services that was based on the recommendations of a consultant hired by the previous NDP government, but was fatally encumbered by an accompanying demand for across-the-board budget cuts.

Central to the transformation, which included the centralization of hospital emergency-room care into three facilities while others were either repurposed as urgent-care centres or closed altogether, was an aggressive redeployment of health-care staff — an endeavour undertaken without consulting the workers directly affected by the changes.

Whatever trust might have existed between the province and its health-care workers quickly evaporated.

The government’s apparent assumption that nurses, doctors and support workers would simply endure the insult and accept the disruption to their lives proved to be a major miscalculation. Many nurses opted to either take jobs in the private sector or leave the field altogether, and when COVID-19’s arrival turned the health-care sector upside down, a looming crisis quickly turned into a full-blown staffing catastrophe.

Despite the obvious need for restorative intervention, the PC government showed little inclination to alter its course. Nurses and health-care aides were hailed publicly during the pandemic as “heroes,” but the province maintained its reticence to negotiate new collective bargaining agreements.

Staffing levels declined further; wait times and frustration — both within the health sector and among the public at large — continued to compound. It was inevitable, then, that health care would be the singular issue upon which the provincial election’s outcome would depend.

In their first public briefing, Premier Wab Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara issued a direct plea to health-care workers. “With the greatest humility,” Kinew intoned, “I would ask you to consider coming back to work on the front lines of our public health-care system,” adding that, while they know the process will be long and challenging, “We are resetting the relationship right now.”

There is, always, a chasm to be bridged between words and deeds. The new premier was reminded rather quickly of this reality when his pledge to striking Manitoba Public Insurance staffers that “We’ve got your back” was followed by a swift rejection of the company’s post-election contract offer and the resumption of picketing until a tentative agreement was reached.

Rebuilding trust takes time, a commodity of which Kinew and company have precious little.

American author and educator Stephen R. Covey (author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) summed it up this way: “Trust is the glue of life. It’s the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It’s the foundational principle that holds all relationships.”

For the new NDP government that has made healing Manitoba’s health care its primary objective and the sole issue on which its success or failure will be judged, earning back the trust of those responsible for delivering health-care services is a crucial first step upon which all future advancements will depend.