MNU and MAHCP call for stronger oversight and meaningful consequences when employers fail to protect workers
WINNIPEG — Violence-related injuries that caused Manitoba healthcare workers to miss work increased by 41 per cent between 2022 and 2025, while a new independent review identifies significant gaps in the province’s enforcement response.
The Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU) and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP) are calling on the provincial government to act on the findings of A Need for Enforcement: Manitoba’s Response to Violence in Health Care Workplaces, an interim report prepared by Sean Tucker, PhD, of Centre West Consulting. The review was commissioned jointly by MNU and MAHCP.
“Right now, an assault that physically harms or causes a psychological injury, does not have to be reported to Manitoba’s workplace safety regulator,” said MAHCP President Jason Linklater. “Government can change that today, and also implement the rest of these urgent recommendations, before another health care worker is hurt.”
Drawing on Workers Compensation Board statistics and provincial enforcement records, the report finds:
- 520 accepted time-loss injury claims in health care were attributed to assaults and violent acts in 2025, up from 368 in 2022.
- Health care accounted for 42 per cent of Manitoba’s accepted time-loss injury claims involving assaults and violence in 2025.
- No stop work orders related to violence or assaults were identified in health care or any other sector in the records reviewed from 2020 to April 2026.
- Of 209 administrative penalties issued across all sectors from 2013 to April 2026, only one was issued to a health care workplace. It concerned asbestos.
- The public occupational health and safety prosecution database reviewed for 2008 to April 2026 showed zero prosecutions related to serious injuries or deaths caused by workplace violence.
These enforcement findings concern the provincial Workplace Safety and Health branch of Manitoba Labour and Immigration, the regulator responsible for enforcing the Workplace Safety and Health Act. The findings do not include police investigations or criminal proceedings.
The report also finds that health care is absent from the regulator’s designated list of high-risk industries, despite having one of Manitoba’s highest workplace injury rates. Health care is instead listed among “other priority areas,” a designation with unclear enforcement implications.
“We recognize that preventing violence in health care is complex, but that cannot become an excuse for accepting it,” said MNU President Darlene Jackson. “Employers must take every reasonable step to protect workers, and government must use its authority when those obligations are not met. A policy on a shelf does not keep frontline staff safe.”
The report makes seven recommendations:
- Designate health care sub-sectors with high rates of violence as high risk and subject them to stronger enforcement.
- Expand the definition of a serious incident to better recognize the physical and psychological harm caused by violence.
- Explicitly include workplace violence prevention requirements in the administrative penalty framework and scale penalties to employer size.
- Fund at least 10 additional permanent safety and health officer positions.
- Organize enforcement teams by sector expertise and consider a dedicated violence and harassment unit.
- Increase prosecution capacity and prioritize violence in health care.
- Make workplace violence a strategic enforcement priority and measure whether enforcement improves employer compliance.
“Violence in health care workplaces is a serious issue that demands a robust and sustained regulatory response,” says Sean Tucker, professor of occupational health and safety at the University of Regina. “These events not only have negative psychological and physical health consequences for health care workers, but also, more broadly, make staff recruitment and retention more difficult.”
MNU and MAHCP are calling for a public implementation plan with clear timelines and accountability for progress.
The September 2026 interim report notes that accepted injury claims understate the full impact of workplace violence because of underreporting. Further findings will follow as outstanding information becomes available.
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Media contacts:
Tim Smith, Senior Advisor, Policy & Public Affairs
431.337.7787 | tim@mahcp.ca