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The head of Manitoba’s nurses union is praising a pair of bills the NDP says will end or limit mandatory overtime for nurses and establish nurse-to-patient ratios in high-priority areas.
NDP Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara introduced the two health-care bills Wednesday.
“I think it’s incredibly positive to see legislation coming forward on nurse-patient ratios, and it’s actually the first legislation in Canada,” Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, told CBC News.
“But I think that this is not going to happen overnight. This is going to take some time to get nurse-patient ratios implemented and rolled out. So, nurses who are waiting for it, they may have to wait a bit longer.”
Bill 26, the Health System Governance and Accountability Amendment Act, would enable the health minister to establish benchmarks to help eliminate or limit the use of mandatory OT in priority areas and would also usher in controls to ensure different health-care centres comply, Asagwara said.
Bill 28, the Health System Governance Accountability Amendment Act Nurse to Patient Ratios, would enable the minister to establish ratios through regulation, also with tools to ensure compliance.
‘No one else in the country has done this,’ Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says of the nurse-to-patient ratios bill. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
“No one else in the country has done this, and we’re doing this in Manitoba because we know that no matter which government is in power, nurses should trust that there’s a mechanism in place to protect nurse-to-patient ratios when they’ve rolled out,” Asagwara said.
B.C. was the first to introduce nurse-patient ratios in 2023 through policy directives in a phased approach beginning with hospitals, with plans to expand to long-term care and other settings. Manitoba would be the first to regulate ratios through legislation.
When the ratios will roll out in Manitoba is a moving target.
Asagwara said a committee will be formed to look at what kind of ratios to implement and where, from critical and emergency care or operating rooms, to rural and urban health centres. The minister said it may look different in one area than it does in Winnipeg depending on local demands.
The NDP government promised in the speech from the throne late last year that it would introduce both pieces of legislation and create a patient safety charter. New Democrats introduced legislation Monday dealing with the latter.
Premier Wab Kinew said on the day of the throne speech that the first group of workers who could expect to see an end to mandatory overtime would be nurses. Jackson questioned after the speech whether that would be possible without more nurses.
Kinew suggested at the time that the system has enough nurses to pull off the plans. The NDP said in October that it had hired 1,100 net new nurses in the two years since being elected.
Asagwara said Wednesday the province has “blown past” that figure.
Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew said on Nov. 18 that the first group of workers who could expect to see an end to mandatory overtime would be nurses. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
“We know that Wab Kinew has gone out and insisted that he has hired enough nurses, and front-line nurses have disputed that,” Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said after question period.
Cook said she thinks nurses are showing their “displeasure” by voting to grey list three hospitals.
Nurses voted to grey list St. Boniface Hospital last month, Thompson General last fall and Health Sciences Centre, the largest hospital in the province, last summer.
Nurses at all three cited a range of issues, from staffing pressures to safety and security concerns on the job.
“I would just echo some of the concerns raised by front-line health-care workers about whether we actually have adequate staff in Manitoba to implement those changes,” Cook said.
“We need to make sure that these bills are more than simply symbolic.”
Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook speaks during question period Wednesday. She says front-line health-care workers are worried about whether there are enough nurses for the NDP to complete its plans. (Bryce Hoye/CBC)
In February, when St. Boniface nurses voted to grey list that facility, Jackson said some nurses were caring for twice as many patients as they did in the recent past.
As of Wednesday, she said nurses still feel overworked.
“They’re still dealing with patient loads that we wouldn’t even have imagined five or 10 years ago … and nurses are feeling very morally injured. And morale is very poor because nurses want to provide the type of care that we were educated to provide,” Jackson said on a call from Vancouver, where she is attending a conference on nurse-to-patient ratios.
Jackson said that on top of educating workers in the system and the public on why instituting ratios will benefit everyone, there also still needs to be more nurses hired to execute the NDP’s legislative goals.
Despite that, Jackson said she is hopeful.
She suggested regulating ratios could have an added benefit of attracting more nurses to Manitoba or luring back nurses who left.
“I think, for nurses, they are eagerly anticipating having something in the system where they actually get to spend that time and provide that holistic care that their patients and their clients and their residents in long-term care need,” Jackson said.
“I think nurses are really looking forward to this. There is a little bit of angst about how it’s going to roll out and how it’s going to work.”
WATCH | Bills move toward targets for nurse-to-patient ratios, ending mandatory OT:
Manitoba takes steps to address health-care staffing woes
New bills before the Manitoba Legislature will give the health minister the power to set rules around the government’s plans to eventually create targets for nurse-to-patient ratios and end mandatory overtime.