Supporting public health-care nurses

 On Thursday May 19th, I spoke in the Manitoba Legislature in support of nurses working in public health care.  My comments are below: 

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): This reso­lu­tion calls on the gov­ern­ment to increase the invest­ment in public health-care nurses rather than private, for-profit agencies. We support this reso­lu­tion.

      The current sad state of affairs in health care in Manitoba is untenable. Rates of unfilled nursing positions are extremely high. As the Manitoba Liberal Leader, the MLA for St. Boniface, pointed out on March the 9th when he tabled a FIPPA report, the Southern Health region has been operating with 584  vacant nursing positions out of 2,448 positions. Almost a quarter of the positions were vacant. Some, such as the Portage hospital, which had a 45 per cent vacancy rate for LPNs, are even higher that this already very high almost 25 per cent rate.

      Similar situations are occurring in other health-care regions with currently 2,400 vacancies province-wide. Sadly, this includes areas of drastic and critical need, like emergency and urgent care centres.

      Similar–running a health-care system with only 75 per cent of staff in the middle of a pandemic, or even now, when the pandemic is still there, but decreasing, is ludicrous. It shows as much as any other single thing that the PC gov­ern­ment has done that it is incompetent when it comes to managing health care in Manitoba.

      Private sector busi­nesses would not run for months or years at 75 per cent staffing when they need a full staff. The gov­ern­ment should be a example of strong operational capability instead of an example of how to manage and function poorly. How could this situation have happened? Instead of filling regular public sector staffing positions, which are vacant, the gov­ern­ment has been hiring more and more agency nurses.

      This is not to say that all agency nurses or many agency nurses are bad nurses. Indeed, I know of some very fine nurses who are working for agencies and who are making a major con­tri­bu­tion to the health care of Manitoba. Indeed, we thank the agencies and the agency nurses for doing their best to cover up for the mistakes of an incompetent gov­ern­ment.

      There are multiple problems which arise from this overreliance on agency nurses, rather than properly staffing regular nursing positions. As an example, in long-term-care homes, agency nurses are less familiar with the residents of the care home. They're less able to ensure their needs are 'mell'–are well met. Residents who may have some level of cognitive dif­fi­cul­ties need to have familiar faces around them, and when there's a constantly rotating agency nurses, that's not present. It helps in these circum­stances to have a nurse who's familiar with the people who are being cared for, and there are many other circum­stances in health care where this applies, but it applies parti­cularly in long-term care.

      Relying on agency nurses is more costly. Agencies charge for the cost of the nurse an ad­di­tional overhead admin­is­tra­tive charge, and if there's travel involved to a location outside of Winnipeg, or the home location of the agency, then there may be a travel cost as well. These costs add up. They add up to a higher cost, lower quality health-care system. And that is the legacy of this gov­ern­ment.

      Ensuring all vacant positions are filled promptly decreases the need for overtime, both regular and mandatory overtime. Having to have nurses work overtime, parti­cularly on a mandatory basis, is a very bad practice. Having a nurse work a second shift after having already worked one shift means the nurse is tired, starting the shift in circum­stances where the nurse may be working under ad­di­tional fatigue and stress con­di­tions, when we know that mistakes are more likely.

      There has been a lot of work, particularly, for example, with interns and residents to recog­nize the fatigue and stress and burnout and mistakes which happen when people are overworked or worked overly long hours. It's time to recog­nize that this also applies par excellence for nurses. It's much more difficult for family life and for scheduling time outside of work when a nurse cannot know ahead of time that she or he will be working. It is very disruptive to good work-life balance, a balance which is really, really im­por­tant to achieve.

      There are many more reasons why it's bad policy to delay or stall in filling staff positions, but I think my point is made. Nursing positions and allied health vacancies need to be filled promptly instead of the dawdling of the current gov­ern­ment.

      There appear to be many reasons for the gov­ern­ment's inability to fill vacancies quickly: (1) they haven't made it a priority; (2) in frequently mandating overtime, they've created con­di­tions where many nurses don't want to work, and they've left the profes­sion or gone to work with private agencies where they can have a better work-life balance. Too many nurses have been burned out by the working con­di­tions and lack of respect under this gov­ern­ment. It is a sad and storied testament to the mistreatment of some of the people who are so im­por­tant to us and to our health-care system, that this has happened.

      In intro­ducing bill 28, the so-called public sector sus­tain­ability act, which drastically limited the bargaining power of unions in Manitoba, the gov­ern­ment created an environ­ment where many were angry and upset that they as nurses were not being well-supported and that their demo­cratic rights were being taken away. Many people don't want to work in the negative environ­ment created by this gov­ern­ment.

      We heard earlier this week from Darlene Jackson, who presented on Bill 2, a bill which finally is repealing bill 28. She said the incompetence of the gov­ern­ment in filling nursing staffing positions has meant almost a million hours of overtime last year. She talked a lot of the loss in trust in the operational capabilities of the PC gov­ern­ment. She talked of the hundreds of nurses who've left public sector nursing because of the public sector sus­tain­ability act.

      The bill was parti­cularly nasty. Interfering with the collective bargaining as the gov­ern­ment did has left a sour taste among nurses, and it won't be easily restored. I have commented elsewhere that when the gov­ern­ment runs or operates activities like health care, it needs to do it very well. For a gov­ern­ment to do so poorly in operating health care has resulted in a great loss of con­fi­dence in the present gov­ern­ment.

      Mr. Deputy Speaker, we support this reso­lu­tion. Fulfilling the request of this reso­lu­tion would be a step in improving the gov­ern­ment's operating capability in health care and would help give Manitoba a more sus­tain­able health-care system and would give some healing and im­prove­ment to a system which was in dif­fi­cul­ty, even before the Pallister-Stefanson gov­ern­ment was first elected in 2016. And such dif­fi­cul­ties continue and, in fact, are worse today.

      Now, the MLA for Dauphin talked of the gov­ern­ment creating a few more nursing positions in a few locations. But if the positions are not filled, if they are vacant, this is an empty, vacant promise. Nurses need respect. Vacancies need to be filled if health care is to operate as it should be in Manitoba.

      Thank you. Merci. Miigwech.