Today we officially launched our new campaign, which we had been letting out a little at a time over the past month. Billboards and bus shelters all around this province will reference what’s most important to us right now… RADICAL CHANGE.
The Radical Change campaign grew out of election promises. It’s a campaign dedicated to wanting and expecting more. It’s about pushing for more.
Radical Change in the profession of nursing means that there are safeguards in place for our members. That loyalty is appreciated and honoured. That mandating ends. That students are incentivized to stay and work here. That Shared Health and government conduct performance reviews on their leaders and long-standing bureaucrats. That there are boundaries for how many times you can try to guilt a nurse to come in on their day off.
This campaign is about calling out the lack of safety measures in place to protect staff. Measures so poor we've had to fight damn hard for with an arbitration. This campaign is about doing the right thing, because sadly, that’s what RADICAL CHANGE is all about in healthcare these days.
Speaking of the arbitration, I’d like to thank our members and staff who were involved in the grievance that we filed over the safety concerns at HSC. Last week, we received the arbitrator’s decision, and it was very critical of Shared Health.
Arbitrator Kris Gibson found that staff at HSC face an “unacceptable level of risk” in areas around the hospital campus and gave Shared Health 30 days to come up with a safety plan.
This has been a long journey, as we filed the grievance in June of 2023, but this is the result that we were hoping for. It’s shameful that it took our grievance to get concrete action on the part of Shared Health.
The Manitoba Government also announced last week that the long-awaited Institutional Safety Officers (ISOs) have completed training and begin working today, April 15. Media reported that there were some inconsistencies over what these officers would be armed with, as Shared Health stated they would only have restraints, but then Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the Winnipeg Free Press that Shared Health has been directed to make sure the officers carry pepper gel.
MNU will continue to monitor the situation and the implementation of these new ISOs. If you would like to read the full arbitrator’s decision, it can be found here.
Last week, I travelled to Regina to attend the 50th Annual Meeting of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses (SUN). It was wonderful to see our sister union celebrate this milestone! We’re also looking forward to our 50th anniversary, which will be next year in 2025, but first we will be hosting our 49th AGM on May 7 and 8 at The Fairmont in Winnipeg.
Turning to another topic, the Manitoba Budget was delivered on the day that the last Pulse went out. Since then, we have made it clear to media, the government and key stakeholders that while we welcome capital investments, these must go hand-in-hand with investments in human resources.
In this, their first budget, the Manitoba Government of Premier Wab Kinew announced the hiring of 210 nurses over the next year and established a provincial recruitment and retention office for our healthcare system. In my own conversations with the press, I said that we are eagerly awaiting details on this office, such as how it is going to be staffed, how much money is going to go into it, and what the goal is.
The hiring goal of 210 nurses in a year is reasonable because it is based on the number of graduating students, but we’re also worried about how many nurses we’re going to lose out of the system each year to retirement.
We know that it will take time to rebuild the healthcare system after it was gutted by the previous government, however, we also know and have conveyed at the highest levels that our members’ patience is wearing thin.
