The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP) says a majority of over 1,400 of its frontline allied health-care members feel staffing, workload and morale had worsened over 2024.
MAHCP conducted an online survey last December to understand its members’ feelings with regard to Manitoba’s health-care system, which is struggling with fewer doctors, recruitment and retention issues and long average wait times for diagnostic procedures and care at emergency departments.
“Allied health-care professionals are dedicated to their patients and they understand the system isn’t going to get fixed overnight, but they were hoping for some improvement by now,” said MAHCP president Jason Linklater in a Jan. 23 news release. “The most troubling result in this survey is the high proportion of members – half or more – who say that staffing, workload and morale are actually getting worse.”
The NDP’s April 2024 budget promised to rebuild health care in Manitoba. For rural areas in particular, the government set a course to recruit doctors, invest in the expansion of medical transportation services, create positions for advanced care paramedics, build a new ER in Eriksdale and build personal care homes starting with Lac du Bonnet (in progress) then Winnipeg and Arborg, among other investments. The government also promised to invest $6.9 million to expand allied health staffing to facilitate weekend patient discharges and encourage colleges and post-secondary institutions to remove barriers to First Nations, Metis and Inuit people who want to becomes allied health professionals, physicians and nurses.
About 48 per cent of respondents to MAHCP’s survey said they had lost people from their department or area while 11 per cent said staffing had improved. Only eight per cent said they saw improvement in morale. And with regard to workload, 62 per cent of respondents said they’re doing more now than at the start of 2024 while only two per cent said they’ve seen their workload decrease.
“We know these issues are linked to staffing, and we also know demand for everything from mental health services to diagnostic tests is only growing,” said Linklater in the release. “Our recent survey results should be a wake-up call: much more needs to be done, and much more quickly, or Manitobans will continue to see negative impacts in high wait times for services like testing, emergency care, mental health and addictions support, and more.”
MAHCP represents over 7,000 allied health professionals working in more than 50 specialized disciplines in labs, clinics, hospitals and long-term and community care. Its members include paramedics, lab and imaging technologists, respiratory therapists and mental health clinicians. The union’s collective agreement expired in March 2024.
