Manitoba losing more nurses per year than rest of Canada: report

Manitoba is losing young nurses faster than almost anywhere else in Canada. A new report shows many are leaving the workforce just a few years into their careers, raising questions about what’s driving them away, and what’s being done to keep them here.

According to a new report from the Montreal Economic Institute, for every 100 nurses under 35 who entered Manitoba’s workforce in 2023, 58 left…the highest rate in the country and far above the national average of 40.

The head of the Manitoba Nurses Union says that turnover shows a system in crisis, where many nurses are so overworked, they can no longer do the job the way they were trained to.

“I am not surprised by this. This isn’t our research, but it’s research that supports what we have been saying, that we really need to work on retaining the nurses we have in the system,” said Darlene Jackson, the president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.

“In order to keep our health system stable, we need to retain every nurse in the system, because we need those nurses to onboard the new nurses coming in.”

The province agrees that staffing remains a serious challenge, but says it’s making progress, pointing to hundreds of new hires and new mentorship programs aimed at retention.

“We are training more nurses than we ever had. We have a net new of almost 1,200 nurses practicing in Manitoba, but to your point, we know we have to do more. It’s really important for us to establish new ways for nurses to be mentored in the workforce, so retention is a pillar we are working really hard on the strengthen in Manitoba,” said Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara.

Jackson however says, “It’s great to recruit, it’s great to get new people in the door, but if you can’t retain them you’re wasting a ton of money, recruiting them, orienting them just to have them move on.”

Jackson is calling for minimum nurse-to-patient ratios, something British Columbia already has, saying it would ensure safer workloads and let nurses spend meaningful time with patients

“Once you have those ratios in place, what it does is guarantee you have the appropriate number of staff to give care to your patients, and one thing I hear from nurses all the time is that currently they are only able to provide the very bare minimum care.”