Nurse speaks out on dire working conditions at Thompson Hospital ER

A nurse who works in northern Manitoba says working conditions have become so dire that nurses in Thompson are “drowning” in unsustainable workloads, and offering a standard of care that many believe is inferior and unacceptable.

Back in 2020, the Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU) started posting on their Facebook page messages they received from nurses about the state of health care in the province, but without revealing the identity of those workers, as part of a social media campaign they refer to as ‘behind the mask.’

“This is nurses telling the truth about what’s really happening in health care,” MNU president Darlene Jackson said on Tuesday.

“We felt this was a way to give a real voice to those on the frontlines, because if they go public they know there can be repercussions, and it can lead to all sorts of issues.”

On Dec. 21, MNU posted an anonymous message they say is from a nurse working in the emergency department at the Thompson General Hospital, a facility in the northern Manitoba city located more than 750 kilometres north of Winnipeg.

“Thompson General Hospital’s ER is drowning, and we can barely hold our breath any longer,” the post reads. “Our wait times and staffing vacancies are increasing. We’re carrying the load of a falling apart acute care and community health care system, yet trying to maintain stability.

“We’re falling apart at the seams.”

The nurse claims the situation is seeing some patients in “unmonitored hallways” at the ER, and has them offering a bare minimum of care to many patients.

“This is a standard of care, to be clear, that no nurse is comfortable with, and one that is beyond our control,” the post reads.

According to the nurses’ post, Thompson’s ER has been working for the last approximately two years with a nursing vacancy rate that has been consistently at 50% or higher.

“We are burnt out, exhausted, deflated and defeated,” the post reads. “We can’t keep functioning this way anymore. We’re drowning.”

Jackson says the MNU has been seeing the situation with nurses and with health care in Thompson and in others areas of northern Manitoba declining for years.

“The north is in big trouble,” Jackson said. “It’s become increasingly hard to recruit, because unless you already live there it’s not a place where many want to go and work, so we see consistently upwards of 50% vacancy rates.”

But while recruiting nurses to work up north is a challenge, Jackson said it is often a bigger challenge to keep them there, and just to keep them in the public health system in Manitoba, as she says more and more are applying for jobs with private and for-profit health care providers.

“Retention is huge, because the way it is now I don’t blame some of them when they do go to the private agencies where you can earn more pay and have a better quality of life, and where you can pick your shifts and have a better work-life balance,” Jackson said.

“And I hear all the time from nurses that they are made to feel not valued, so we need to change the entire culture and treat them like valued employees.”

In a statement sent to the Winnipeg Sun, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara placed much of the blame for the current state of health care in northern Manitoba on the province’s previous PC government, but also pledged the NDP government will work to improve working conditions in the north for health care workers.

“After seven years of health care cuts under the previous government, hospitals across Manitoba and health care workers are struggling,” Asagwara said. “This is particularly difficult in the north where the previous government ignored the pleas for investment in communities like Thompson.

Asagwara said the government is now committed to “improve workplace culture, reduce stress and burnout and improve retention” in northern Manitoba.

In an email, a Northern Health Region (NHR) spokesperson said the health authority is aware of the staffing challenges in Thompson, and has been “working diligently to address them.”

“There are currently 56 FTE’s (Full Time Equivalent hours) vacant for nursing positions at Thompson General Hospital,” the spokesperson said.

“The NHR Executive Team has been working continuously towards new innovative recruitment strategies.”

According to the spokesperson, NHR is currently offering financial incentives for nurses to work in remote and northern communities, and looking for ways to get more nurses trained who already live in northern Manitoba.

“NHR advertises up to $11,000 Isolation/Retention allowance for qualifying positions, remoteness allowance, Northern pay scales, and 20 vacation days,” the spokesperson said.

“The NHR also continues to work closely with education stakeholders such as UCN and Frontier to enhance post-secondary training to meet the demand for vacancies.”

This story was originally published in The Winnipeg Sun. It is republished under a Creative Commons license as part of the Local Journalism Initiative.