Too few staff, too many deaths and injuries

A total of 24 deaths and another 74 injuries occurred in Manitoba health-care settings during the first nine months of 2024, according to Manitoba Health critical incident reports for that period of time. Read this article for free: Already have an account? As we navigate through unprecedented times, our journalists are working harder than ever to bring you the latest local updates to keep you safe and informed. Now, more than ever, we need your support.

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A total of 24 deaths and another 74 injuries occurred in Manitoba health-care settings during the first nine months of 2024, according to Manitoba Health critical incident reports for that period of time. Read unlimited articles for free today: Already have an account? Opinion A total of 24 deaths and another 74 injuries occurred in Manitoba health-care settings during the first nine months of 2024, according to Manitoba Health critical incident reports for that period of time. Provincial legislation defines a “critical incident” as an unintended event that occurs when health services provided to a person result in “serious and undesired” consequences such as death, disability or injury, and does not result from the person’s underlying health condition or “from a risk inherent in providing the health services.

” The three quarterly reports for 2024 — the report for the final quarter of 2024 will be released weeks from now — reveal that the overall number of critical incidents and deaths that occurred during the period of July 1 to Sept. 30 was higher than the number of incidents in the previous two quarters of the 2024 calendar year. During those three months alone, 11 people died and another 26 suffered a “major” injury.

Of the 11 deaths, one patient died after becoming entrapped in a bed rail, while another suffered a fatal injury after leaving a Manitoba hospital emergency department without being seen. Among the 26 non-fatal injuries that were suffered during that time, a surgical item was left inside a patient’s body, a patient underwent an unnecessary surgical procedure and a client suffered serious harm when given the wrong medication. The 11 third-quarter deaths are in addition to nine deaths that occurred in the first quarter of 2024, and another four that occurred in the second quarter.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says that “Reports like this are an important reminder of why we have to keep going — to keep patients safe,” but alleges that “many” critical incidents are a result of “years of cuts to the front lines.” Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson has a different view. She says the incidents are the consequences of too few front-line staff, and points to “The incidents in areas where clearly there’s an inability to monitor and provide oversight seem to be increasing.

” Contrary to Asagwara’s attempt to blame the previous government for the problem, Jackson adds that “There has been some direction from government to save eight per cent in their budgets, and we’re seeing a lot of that saving come right from the front line.” If the nursing shortage is impairing nurses’ ability to monitor patients and provide oversight of patients’ care, as is almost certainly the case, what is the solution? Several Canadian provinces have introduced minimum nurse-to-patient ratios, but Manitoba has not yet done so. In British Columbia, for example, the minimums are one nurse per patient on intensive-care units, one nurse per three patients for “general” emergencies in emergency rooms, and one nurse per four patients on general medical/surgical inpatient units, according to the B.

C. nurses’ union. Those ratios are undoubtedly based upon research and best practices in other jurisdictions, but the implementation and enforcement of such standards in Manitoba can only occur if there are sufficient numbers of nurses available to satisfy those ratios — and that is far from the reality in this province.

Last month, the Kinew government claimed it had hired 481 nurses since April of last year, but Jackson says “I’m hearing from nurses on the front line that ...

there’s been negligible change, and they really haven’t seen any impact of having these additional workers.” Her perception is buttressed by the fact that overtime rates for nurses are as high as they have ever been, and the use of agency nurses continues to be extremely high. Beyond that issue, rural emergency departments across the province are often closed due to staffing shortages, our wait times continue to be among the highest in the country and more than 150,000 Manitobans still do not have a family doctor.

It’s one thing to discuss the troubling state of our health-care system in the abstract, but the quarterly critical incident reports released by Manitoba Health make clear that ordinary Manitobans are paying a heavy price for decisions and non-decisions made by the current and previous provincial governments. The reports represent an alarm bell, loudly clanging within Manitoba’s undermanned health-care system. They underscore the reality that our province’s health-care system is only as good and effective as the doctors, nurses and other professionals working within it — and that Manitobans will continue to be exposed to the risk of avoidable injury and/or death until the staffing crisis is finally solved for the long term.

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