Manitoba releases its first recommendations on nurse-to-patient ratio

Manitoba has recently passed a law mandating nurse-patient rations for all provincial health authorities. Harrison Shin explains.

With Manitoba being the first province in Canada to legislate the nurse-to-patient ratio, the committee in charge of implementing it released its first recommendations.

Bill 28 was passed following the last-minute marathon wrap-up of the spring sitting – amending the Health System Governance and Accountability Act, allowing the health minister to establish nurse-to-patient ratios by regulation. The now-amended law will require a health authority or organization to implement the ratio and prepare a compliance plan.

On Friday, the Manitoba Nurse-Patient Ratio Subcommittee released its first initial recommendations to implement it. Three province-wide surveys were done, gathering responses from 4,831 frontline nurses, the document said.

Nine recommendations were made, including minimum unit/program-specific ratios for both acute and non-acute areas, minimum baseline staffing of two nurses per unit/program on top of the ratios, and developing a rural and northern framework.

“The implementation committee is going to look at these recommendations and then it has to do the work of understanding what are the differences geographically,” Manitoba Minister of Health, Seniors and Long-Term Care Uzoma Asagwara said in a media scrum on Friday. “The needs of Winnipeg are different than the needs of the North or Prairie Mountain Health.”

They said the ratios can improve nurses’ work-life balance, which can lead to improved patient care and outcomes.

The Manitoba Nurses Union president, Darlene Jackson, said it’s “definitely” a positive reaction.

“It’s something that we’ve been advocating for a very long time,” she told CTV News.

Jackson said this came from their last round of collective bargaining.

“It’s been a huge amount of work. It included government, employers, union frontline nurses … I am very anxious to get implementation on the go. Get this up and moving.”

She approached the specifics of implementation in a slower way, however, due to the shortage of nurses in the province.

“We have to pick where we want to start … but what we need to do is start working on it because we know that nurse-patient ratios not only provide better patient care and better outcomes, but we also know that nurse-patient ratios recruit and retain nurses.”

In a statement, Kathleen Cook, the Progressive Conservative’s health critic, said while the ratios are a “laudable goal,” it will require concrete action.

“Earlier this year, hospitals in the Prairie Mountain region experienced critical staffing shortages when the NDP banned the use of agency nurses without first ensuring adequate staffing,” Cook said.

“Thompson Hospital currently has a 73 per cent nursing vacancy rate. Three hospitals are currently ‘grey-listed’ by the MNU because the NDP can’t guarantee nurses’ safety.

“Implementing nurse-to-patient ratios is going to require the NDP to develop and implement a staffing plan with a strong focus on retention.”

No timeline or additional funding was announced in the scrum.