Manitoba announces a record 45 new ICU nurses

In an effort to combat the nurse-to-patient ratios at Manitoba hospitals, the province announced on Monday that a record 45 nurses are set to graduate from an ICU training program in the spring.

“We’re going to keep working with nurses, listening to nurses, working with leaders. Our retention and recruitment office is going to keep building on this momentum. We know that for our most recent ICU program intake, we had more than 80 nurses apply for the program,” said Uzoma Asagwara, Minister of Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care.

Jane Curtis, the CEO of the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, said, “ICU nurses take care of the sickest and most vulnerable patients in our system. And the ICU plays an essential part in how our overall system performs. Having more ICU nurses allows us to always have fully staffed ICU beds and greatly reduces our need to rely on overtime and mandating.”

The program spanned 15 weeks, and of the 45 nurses, 18 will be sent to St. Boniface, 15 to HSC, and six to both Grace and Brandon.

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals said in a statement that respiratory therapists are leaving Winnipeg’s ICUs and acute care centres faster than they can be hired. It goes on to say that at Grace Hospital, where the Manitoba government made an announcement today about ICU nurses, more than 40 per cent of respiratory therapist positions are unfilled.

“Our priority is making sure that we’re staffing across the board. Our priority is ensuring, of course, that nurses we’ve got great, easy pathways for nurses to join the front line in critical care. But to your point, we need more respiratory therapists. That’s why we doubled the training seats for rt’s we know we need more health care aids. We know that we need more physiotherapists in the public system,” said Minister Asagwara.