Health Care and Health Care Aides at St. Boniface

For months members of UFCW Local 1869 have been trying to let the government know that the plans at St. Boniface Hospital are fraught with problems.

As their flyer points out "Believe it or not the NDP government has approved a plan to have St. Boniface Hospital proceed to cut a net 25 caregivers from the bedside in the Woman/Child and Medicine wards. Frontline caregivers, Nurses and Health Care Aides have reacted angrily to these cuts and have universally condemned them as devastating to patient care. Newborn babies, women who have just given birth and people in the last days of their lives will have to wait longer for care. "

The NDP have been told but they don't care. As the Health Care Aides have told me "Patients are already waiting too long for toileting, feeding, bathing, turning, ambulating and bed changing. Caregivers are already burning out and that's before the cuts."

Yesterday I was at St. Boniface Hospital together with Jim Sanford and other members of UFCW Local 1869. They are very angry at Gary Doer and his NDP government and rightfully so. They have tried to raise their concerns with the NDP but they have not been listened to. I have visited with health care aides who are members of the union previously, and I came back yesterday for a Press Conference to lend them my support. In order to get our health care system working properly, we need to consider the input from frontline workers. Frontline workers at St. Boniface are seeing the problems first hand. They have some ideas to fix the problems. But the plan which will be implemented in June was designed by St. Boniface Hospital management, approved by the WHRA, approved by the Minister of Health, with NO input or consultation from health care providers or patients.

I have also heard concerns that St. Boniface Hospital has been receiving comparatively less in annual increases in funding that the average of acute care programs across Manitoba. This may also be contributing to the problem.