NDP bills would limit mandatory OT for Manitoba nurses, allow nurse-to-patient ratios | CBC News
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New Democrats are taking steps to end mandatory overtime for nurses and implement staff-to-patient ratios in hospitals and other health-care settings after calls for those changes by front-line workers and advocates.
NDP Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara introduced two health-care bills Wednesday — one that would limit mandatory OT for nurses and another that would allow the creation of nurse-to-patient ratios in high-priority areas of the system.
Bill 26, the Health System Governance and Accountability Amendment Act, would enable the health minister to establish benchmarks to help eliminate or limit the use of mandatory OT in priority areas and would also usher in controls to ensure different health-care centres comply, Asagwara said.
Bill 28, the Health System Governance Accountability Amendment Act Nurse to Patient Ratios, would enable the minister to establish ratios through regulation, also with tools to ensure compliance.
Premier Wab Kinew promised to do both in his speech from the throne late last year and to create a patient safety charter. New Democrats introduced legislation Monday dealing with the latter.
During the throne speech, Kinew said the first group of workers who could expect to see an end to mandatory overtime would be nurses. After the speech, the Manitoba Nurses Union questioned whether that would be possible without more nurses working in the system.
Kinew said at the time that the system does have enough nurses to end OT. The NDP said in October they’d hired 1,100 net new nurses in the two years since being elected.
Nurses voted to grey list St. Boniface Hospital last month; nurses grey listed Thompson General last fall; and nurses grey listed Health Sciences Centre, the largest hospital in the province, last summer.
Nurses at all three hospitals cited a range of issues, from staffing pressures to safety and security concerns on the job.
In February, when St. Boniface nurses voted to grey list that facility, Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said proper nurse-to-patient ratios are necessary for staff to effectively manage patients, monitor changes and make interventions in a timely manner.
She also said at the time that some nurses were caring for twice as many patients as they did in the recent past.