Nurses union worried about Manitoba health-care cuts

The union representing nurses in Manitoba said a recent government directive to cut costs could have an impact on patient care in the province.

Darlene Jackson, president of the Manitoba Nurses’ Union, said the government has directed Shared Health and other health regions to save money in their budget and allocate funding for front-line care from administrative costs.

“They are very concerned that despite the direction from government that this is to come from bureaucracy and go to the front line, that's not what they're seeing, and they're very concerned that the cuts are invariably going to come from the front line and impact even more of our ability to provide really good quality patient care.”

Jackson said the decision has had an impact on nurses already, hearing stories from her members about sick time not being covered by other staff members working overtime.

She said they’re worried nurses will be even more short-staffed if cuts move to the front lines.

In a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the cuts will free up funding to help add nursing capacity.

“Our government has been very clear since we campaigned that the ballooning bureaucracy in health care needs to be redirected to the front lines to make sure that we have more staff and that patients have better care,” Asagwara said.

Asagwara blamed the previous Progressive Conservative government for staffing shortages and increased bureaucracy in the province’s health-care system.

“It is not something that you can fix overnight. It's going to take us time to repair that damage that was done and build back up the capacity the previous government cut,” they said.

Jackson said she wants the provincial government to ensure the cuts remain at the administrative level and don’t impact the front line. Asagwara said if a health region is not following those guidelines, it will be immediately addressed by the province.