Why are nurses leaving Manitoba? New study looks into nurse retention

Keeping nurses in the workforce has been an issue the last couple of years here in Manitoba, but why are nurses leaving?

A new study by a local professor looks at retention and beyond hiring to understand why people are choosing to stay or leave.

Sonia Udod has been working with nurses and leaders to co-design retention strategies. She says there has been an ongoing issue with nurses leaving the profession.

“If nurses are well cared for and are happy in their jobs. They’ll do better with patients, and patient outcomes will be better. It sounds really simple, but it’s true,“ said Udod.

Udod highlights factors like workload, support, and workplace conditions as major influences on retention. She found that nurses are sometimes put in positions where they are not doing nursing-related tasks, which Udod says is meaningless work.

“So, what is it that nurses see in their workplace that they need? And they have told us that they need a number of things. They need mentoring, especially with the new nurses. They need to have a better workplace culture, where there is no bullying, where they feel psychologically safe, where there’s education, where they can move up or move around internally in the workplace, and they also need leadership support and visibility,” Udod explained.

“So the things that they want is not new, but it’s new in the sense that now we have a new demographic in the workplace. We have Gen X, we have Gen Z, we have Gen Y, and some of the needs that they have are different than previous generations, and the workplace is so unpredictable and so intense that they require more support than in the past.”

Darlene Jackson, the president of the Manitoba Nurses Union, says, “Recruiting nurse is wonderful, but if you recruit them and you can’t retain them then you’ve wasted your money recruiting them, so I would say that we need to look seriously at government coming forward with some really good retention packages to keep nurses in the system and I think that a changing culture where nurses feel they’re appreciated and valued would certainly help.”

However, Udod says, “I don’t think we’ve ever been in a situation like this before. There’s always been waves of up and down cycles of shortages, too many nurses, but we are now in a situation where we are in a severe shortage across the world.”

CityNews reached out to the health minister’s office, which said they are listening to healthcare workers and making the workplace safer and more secure.

“So there’s a lot we’re doing to make sure that we are retaining folks in the health care system. That’s why we’re seeing results. We have over 4,000 net new health care workers working in Manitoba. We’re treating, we’re healthcare workers than we ever have in this province. And we also know that’s not enough. There’s more to do, and we’re going to keep doing health,” said Udod.