The Manitoba government is taking steps to improve home-care services in the province by recruiting and retaining hundreds of new workers.
On Monday, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (WRHA) has recruited 256 new health-care aides since October 2023.
This means fewer vacancies, more visits, and fewer cancellations.
“What that means for us as a system, as a home-care program is that we can provide a reliable service for our clients and family members,” said Luba Bereza, the WRHA’s director of centralized home care and mutual palliative care. “So they can depend on us when they need us.”
The province notes that the recruits have helped reduce the health-care aide vacancy rate from 24 per cent in January 2023 to 10.5 per cent as of the end of May 2024.
It adds that the Winnipeg-area cancellation rate has dropped from 5.02 per cent in January 2023 to 1.38 per cent in April 2024, and that the number of monthly home-care visits has increased from 384,000 to 445,000 since January 2023.
“It means families can depend on us, clients can depend on us, they can stay in their homes longer,” Bereza said.
“We’re contributing to the health of the overall health-care system.”
More information about home-care services in Manitoba can be found online.