Thursday, September 7, 2023 | Treaty 1 and Dakota Territory, Homeland of the Red River Métis, Winnipeg MB - Today NDP Leader Wab Kinew stood with nurses to announce his commitment to improve working conditions and offer better work-life balance for all Manitoba nurses.  

“Our first priority in health care is to fix the staffing crisis,” said Kinew. “Health care does not work without nurses. But for the last seven years Heather Stefanson has treated nurses terribly. Stefanson’s cuts have burnt nurses out and driven them out of the profession and ignored the role nurse practitioners can play. We will respect, recruit and retain nurses by improving their workplaces and working with them to make health care better for everyone in Manitoba.”  

The Manitoba NDP’s plan will create safer and more supportive workplaces that keep nurses in the public system and improve opportunities for advanced training and continuing education. The plan includes: 

• Collaborating with nurses to develop a phased approach to keeping nurses in the public system and bringing back nurses that left under Heather Stefanson. 
• Collaborating with nurses and community groups to develop a concrete plan to get Internationally Educated Nurses transitioned into nursing careers. 
• Working with educational institutions to create a fast-track ladder from LPN to BN. 
• Expanding the retention incentives to include all nurses who were excluded by Heather Stefanson’s PCs.  
• Developing a plan to end mandatory overtime for nurses and work to implement better nurse-patient ratios. 

Darlene Jackson, President of the MNU, endorsed the NDP’s plan to improve nursing in Manitoba. “One of the main drivers pushing nurses out of the public health system is the inability for them to control their work life,” she said. “Another is not fairly incentivizing all nurses to stay in the public system. By working to remove barriers, patients win. MNU has long advocated to utilize NPs more effectively. This plan, along with meaningful input from Manitoba’s frontline nurses is something we would absolutely welcome.” 

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