“Crisis”: NDP Cuts Worsen Rural Nursing Shortage, ER Closures in Parkland Region
SWAN RIVER — Immediately after the Kinew government drastically reduced the pool of private nurses across the province, Manitoba healthcare workers have begun sounding the alarm over impending emergency rooms closures in Dauphin and Swan River.
“We warned the NDP this would happen when the health minister announced they were forcing almost every private nursing agency out of Manitoba,” said Roblin MLA Kathleen Cook, PC Critic for Health. “Prairie Mountain Health has a 30% nursing vacancy rate and a high reliance on agency nurses. What exactly did the health minister think was going to happen here? This kind of chaos is self-inflicted.”
The move to cut ties with nearly 80 private agencies was announced by Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara last week, drawing repeated warnings from PCs and front-line workers that this would cause disruptions to patient care if there was no contingency plan. The NDP government once again plowed ahead without listening, and nurses have called the resulting situation a “crisis” that could have been avoided.
“The NDP are once again putting ideology over Manitobans without any forethought, leaving front-line workers in chaos and patients paying the price,” said Cook. “It’s last year’s botched homecare scheduling fiasco all over again.”
Despite Wab Kinew claiming that Manitoba has enough nurses, PMH authorities say that the region continues to experience staffing pressures due to vacancies.
“Our community just experienced a mass emergency event that sent a bus full of students from Sapotaweyak Cree Nation to the hospital,” said Swan River MLA Rick Wowchuk. “It pains me to imagine what the situation would’ve been like had there been fewer nurses here to immediately answer the call.”
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