Budget 2024 acknowledges that allied health professionals can help provide high-quality care to more Manitobans, and to fix what’s broken in our system. Allied health professionals want to be there when they’re needed, to help move patients safely from hospital back to the community, freeing up beds and bringing down ER wait times.
These initiatives are important, but more dedicated investment and attention is needed in the short-term to fill vacancies and staff up in key areas to bring down wait times and make sure care is accessible. As of today, Manitoba is still burning out allied health professionals due to chronic understaffing and excessive workload and overtime. We are hopeful that the funding increases we heard about today can start to change that.
MAHCP still wants to see a comprehensive human resource plan to address the ongoing staffing crisis in allied health, including:
- Targeted retention and recruitment incentives for specialized, high-demand areas including respiratory therapy, rural diagnostics and paramedics;
- Targeted training initiatives and incentives to ensure we fill current seats and expand where needed to meet growing demand for specialized allied health professionals
- Competitive wages and benefit
Read MAHCP’s complete pre-budget recommendations.