Manitoba adds 1,255 net-new, returning health-care workers since April

Manitoba’s health-care system has seen 1,255 net new workers enter the system in the past year.

Manitoba’s provincial government says in the past year it has added more than 1,000 net-new and returning workers to the health-care system.

Since April 1, 2024, the province says 1,255 full- and part-time health-care workers have joined the system—exceeding a goal the provincial NDP government had set for itself last year.

“We made an ambitious promise to Manitobans to hire 1,000 net-new people into the health system, and today we’re proud to say we’ve exceeded that goal,” Premier Wab Kinew said in a news release.

These new workers include:

• 162 Allied Health workers (diagnostics)
• 14 Allied Health—emergency response services
• 386 health care aides
• 481 Nurses
• 7 Midwives
• 28 Physicians /clinical assistants
• 39 Residents
• 138 physicians

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said while many of these workers are brand new to the system – noting the province gives an offer letter to every nursing student on the day of their graduation—many have also returned to the health-care system.

Of the 481 new nurses, they said more than 60 are recently retired nurses who returned to practise, and 219 nurses left private for-profit nursing agencies to join the provincial float pool.

They noted the province is also in the process of beefing up security, with 96 institutional safety officers working in hospitals in Winnipeg, Selkirk, and Brandon. Another 27 officers are currently being hired or are in training.

Asagwara said permanent artificial intelligence weapon scanners are also being installed at Health Sciences Centre and Children’s Hospital emergency rooms as well as the Crisis Response Centre. The scanners are set to be fully installed by Feb. 13.

The province said with more workers in the system, health regions have been able to cut back on the use of mandated overtime. The premier said the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority cut back mandated overtime for nurses by 45 per cent between October 2023 and October 2024.

‘Not nearly enough’: Vacancies among Allied Health still high, union says

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP) applauded the province’s efforts to staff up the health sector. However, the union warned 162 new Allied Health workers is “not nearly enough to have a significant impact.”

“Allied Health hiring is slow, partly because they’re highly specialized, but also because Manitoba loses hundreds of these professionals each year to other jurisdictions with better wages, incentives, and working conditions,” MAHCP President Jason Linklater said in a release, noting hundreds of current workers are poised for retirement.

“What we’re seeing so far isn’t going to fill anywhere close to 1,000 vacant allied health positions, and today’s announcement of net new positions, although a positive step, isn’t going to bring down wait times nor will it enable us to retain the valuable allied health we have.”

CUPE, the union representing 19,000 health-care workers in Winnipeg and Shared Health, said the staffing efforts are a huge relief for frontline workers.

“The impacts of staff cuts and restructuring under the previous government are still being felt to this day, so it is a huge relief to have a government actually put in the work to bring health workers back into the system,” CUPE 204 President Margaret Schroeder said in a statement.

Schroeder said the staffing crisis remains ongoing, however, with many facilities continuing to work short-staffed.

Both the premier and the health minister said work to continue recruiting and retaining new health-care workers continues.