The staffing challenges in allied health professions affect patient care.

The allied health sector’s growing vacancy rates have compromised patient services, creating
circumstances in which Manitobans find themselves waiting longer and travelling further from home to access the care they need. Here are some examples:

• Waiting up to 10 minutes for response to a rural or Northern emergency medical 911 phone call due to staffing shortages.
• As of May 2023, ambulance response times had increased by roughly 30% since 2018 due to a staggering 40% vacancy rate among rural paramedics.
• More frequent intermittent closures of rural ER’s, including Roblin and Eriksdale, forced to shut down for extended periods due to lack of diagnostic staff.
• Unacceptable wait times for diagnostic procedures, from MRIs to mammograms. Median wait times for MRI rose to 20 weeks in 2023 and were as high as 34 weeks at Grace Hospital.

Soaring vacancy rates have resulted in unreasonable, prolonged levels of overtime, eroding morale, depleting resilience levels, and leading to burnout and attrition. Allied health professionals are also affected by significant wage disparity.

• An independent survey of health-care workers and system analysis conducted by Deloitte in 2022 found that “a lack of psychological safety and insufficient wellness supports” were key drivers for low employee resilience and burnout. More than two-thirds (68%) of employees said they were experiencing burnout and more than half (54%) were seriously considering leaving their jobs.
• Although we made some headway in addressing long-standing wage disparities for some of our member disciplines during the last round of collective bargaining, wages for many high-demand allied health professions still lag significantly behind other jurisdictions. Manitoba is not competitive.