Summer is winding down and as fall settles in, the provincial legislature in Manitoba is back in session. This is an opportunity to both reflect on the state of health care over the past few months and to consider what changes still need to be made to improve working conditions and the delivery of health care across our province.
This past summer saw a mix of good and bad news for health care in Manitoba. As with other summers, many rural ERs were not able to stay open continuously due to staffing issues. This pattern leaves too many Manitobans without the emergency care they need as close as they need it. More investment in recruiting and retaining doctors and all other members of the health care team working in communities across Manitoba is needed to address this ongoing problem.
Here in Winnipeg, the rollout of the new centralized scheduling system for home-care also caused chaos and left far too many Manitobans who rely on these services waiting for appointments that didn’t come. All this caused stress on Manitoba’s families and patients.
In a disappointment for harm reduction providers and advocates, the government also announced that they would not be establishing Manitoba’s first permanent safe consumption site for at least two more years. This decision means that a new application for a federal exemption – necessary to running such sites – will need to be made, and could mean more preventable deaths due to drug poisoning as a result. In the 2023 campaign, the NDP promised to establish a permanent SCS, but nearly two years into their mandate, we are still waiting. This crisis demands urgent action.
Elsewhere in the health care system, ER wait times remain at record highs, Manitoba remains the second lowest province in terms of primary care physicians per capita, and private agency spending for nurses and health care aides continues to rise. Such use of provincial funding to support private, for-profit delivery of health care is inefficient, seeing taxpayer dollars going to support private profits rather than improving patient care.
Staffing levels across the system remain inadequate to meet demand, leading to burnout and continuing to deepen the retainment crisis across health care fields in Manitoba. The system has not yet recovered from years of PC cuts and the damage done to the workforce and to patients’ health during the COVID19 pandemic. The demands of Manitoba’s aging population are also outstripped by the resources available to deliver care for seniors, whether they are aging in place with the help of home care services or moving into a permanent care home.
To mark the start of the fall Legislative session, students from the University of Manitoba rallied to call on the government to keep their promise and restore public health coverage for international students. Their message was simple and powerful: health has no borders. International students support Manitoba’s economy and pay more than four times what local students do for university education – funds universities across Canada have become very reliant on. Charging them privately for health care puts an undue burden on students already paying more for their education here in Manitoba.
This must change. Promises like restoring health coverage for international students and establishing the first permanent supervised consumption site need to be kept.
Still, it’s not all bad news. Despite the many challenges straining our health care system in Manitoba and government delays in fulfilling central campaign promises, real improvements are being made.
The province hired a record number of net new doctors in 2024. 164 were added, well above the average of about 58 added annually between 2008 and 2023. At MHC, we hope to see this trend continue, with greater financial support publicly provided for local medical students and the universities that train them. It is especially important to see recruitment efforts focused on hiring and keeping doctors working in rural and northern communities that are chronically underserved.
Responding to the delays, staff turnover, and missed appointments caused by the new centralized scheduling system for home-care, the provincial government has apologized and acted to address the issue. They have moved back to organizing workers by expertise and geographic area, while also hiring over 230 home-care aides since fall 2023. More recruitment efforts are underway to continue to add capacity to this essential service.
The investments in staffing and other health care spending made by the NDP since coming to power in 2023 are also starting to show promising results in another key metric – the number of critical incidents reported to health authorities. Data from 2024 shows that the annual number of critical incident deaths in health care facilities declined by approximately 24 per cent compared to 2023. Major injuries were also down about 18 per cent. This shows that investing in health care makes all of us better off.
Rebuilding our health care system will take time. Years of cuts and creeping privatization have weakened our public health care system in Manitoba and there is much work to be done to address the harm done by this under investment and the resulting loss of so many health care workers. As a Coalition, MHC is committed to advocating for evidence-based solutions to the staffing crisis and other system-wide challenges in health care delivery. We are also committed to ensuring all Manitobans, regardless of where they live or their ability to pay, can depend on the health care system to provide the care they need for themselves and their families.
We encourage all Manitobans who are passionate about improving our public health care system to join our Coalition – reach out via email, the contact form here on our website, or our social media pages. As provincial director, I want to hear from you.
Let’s work together to keep profit out of health care and to make sure all of us can count on the system to be there for us when we need it.