Last week, Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon said during a press conference, where she and Premier Heather Stefanson announced a new interdisciplinary health and community services simulation centre at Red River College Polytech, that a “comprehensive plan” to address the nurse staffing shortage will be coming in the next week.

We are eagerly awaiting the details of this “comprehensive plan” to see if it includes any of the suggestions that we have provided to government officials over the past years – yes, years, because the staffing crisis started even before the COVID-19 pandemic and we warned government it was happening.

Of course, we will inform our members of the details of this plan in upcoming editions of The Pulse

On a new topic now, it was a pleasure for me to have recently attended the Annual General Meeting of the United Nurses of Alberta (UNA), held at the Edmonton Expo Centre on October 18-20, and the Biennial Convention of the Registered Nurses’ Union of Newfoundland and Labrador (RNUNL) the week of October 24, 2022.

Nurses across our country are raising their voices, in fact the RNUNL launched a campaign during their Convention with the phrase “Beyond broken. But not beyond repair,” and I have returned to Manitoba with a renewed sense of optimism that our health care system can still be repaired.

To end this message on a positive note, I’m very pleased to write that our new MNU Manager of Administrative Services Kaley Wusaty-Phillips has settled in nicely since joining our wonderful team just after Thanksgiving, and that Mike Sutherland, who until recently was our Director of Labour Relations, has accepted the position of MNU Executive Director!

In solidarity,

Darlene Jackson

President

Manitoba Nurses Union