A union representing more than 6,600 out-of-contract health-care workers in rural Manitoba is calling for better wages and a phaseout of private-agency employees to help solve chronic staff shortages.
The Manitoba Government and General Employees’ Union released a 24-page report Thursday with 10 recommendations intended to retain, recruit and train more workers, including health-care aides, physiotherapists and scheduling clerks.
“This government made an election commitment to fix health-care. To keep this promise, they must invest in the health-care teams,” MGEU president Kyle Ross said at a news conference. “Health-care support staff and technical professional health-care providers deserve the same respect and recognition as their nurse and doctor colleagues.”
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MGEU president Kyle Ross said money spent on private agency staffing would be better spent hiring more workers for the public system. The union released several recommendations aimed at staffing up the health-care system, including a recruitment strategy.
Ross said 16 facilities in the Prairie Mountain Health region have vacancy rates of more than 40 per cent.
More than 700 positions are vacant in the health-care aide and home-care programs in PMH and Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, he said.
Spending on private-agency staffing has increased from about $8 million in 2021-22 to almost $30 million in 2023-24, with half of it going toward travel costs, the report said.
Ross said that money would be better spent hiring more workers for the public system.
Other recommendations include a system-wide staff retention strategy, an increase in full-time positions, expanding training opportunities to more communities, and legislating staffing ratios to align with the provincial goal of 4.1 hours of care per day for personal care home residents.
chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca
Chris Kitching
Reporter
Chris Kitching is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He began his newspaper career in 2001, with stops in Winnipeg, Toronto and London, England, along the way. After returning to Winnipeg, he joined the Free Press in 2021, and now covers a little bit of everything for the newspaper. Read more about Chris.
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