The Manitoba Government and General Employees Union has released a report on the staffing crisis in rural health care, which includes ten recommendations that they feel would greatly fix health care issues in the province.
The report, titled From Crisis to Stability – Fixing the Staffing Crisis in Manitoba’s Health Care System, showed that Health Care Aide vacancies across Prairie Mountain Health was over 30 per cent, with 16 facilities showing vacancy rates of over 40 per cent.
There were also over 700 vacant positions in health care aide and home care programs in Prairie Mountain Health and interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authorities combined.
It also reported that Health employers are competing for workers with the retail and service industry in small and medium sized communities and must improve wages to recruit and retain these vital members of the health care team.
Among the recommendations in the report were implementing an aggressive recruitment and retention strategy, providing more training opportunities in more communities, expanding the number of full-time positions, and putting an end to unnecessary system-wide restructuring exercises.
