Manitoba health minister says she hasn't read report that says many health-care staff have considered quitting

Manitoba Health Minister Audrey Gordon saysher department wasn't aware of a year-old report making more than 30recommendations to improve the well-being of the province's health-care workers and she herself has yet to read it.

The report called for numerous actions after findingmore health-care workers in Manitoba are dealing with burnout and thinking of changing jobs than elsewherein Canada.

Gordon said the report, preparedby consulting firm Deloitte, wasn't commissioned by the provincial Progressive Conservative government, but rather Shared Health, the provincial organization that co-ordinates health-care service delivery and planning across Manitoba.

The report in question isdescribed as confidential and wasn't made public, until a copy was leaked to the ManitobaNDP and Liberals. The opposition parties brought it up in question period at the legislature on Monday.

After learning about the report's existence this week, Gordon said shewants "to respect the writers of that report," which is a draft copy, and give them the "opportunity to finalize it and to make it availableto government in a final form."

"In my timein government I can tell you I wrote a lot of draft reports, and it wasn't until maybe iteration No. 20 that it was finalized," Gordon said.

It appears no final report will ever be supplied, however. The report's authors state that, as of July 2022, there are no plans to continue theassessment. An explanation is not provided.

More than half of staff have thought ofquitting

The document saystwo-thirds of health-care staff are experiencing burnout, while more than half of them have seriously thought about looking for a new job in the past yeara number that jumps to 67 per cent when looking at nurses alone.

The authorssuggestthese issues are driven by factors mostly out of individual employees' control, such as their workload, shifts and management, and many of these concerns existed before the pandemic.

If this situation doesn't change, it poses risk to patients and the overall health-care system, the report says, addingit's unlikely to improve without targeted interventions.

NDP health critic Uzoma Asagwarasaid Gordon's explanationshe doesn't want to read a draft report before it's finalized doesn't hold weight.

"I think that that is a very terrible excuse.It is the minister'sresponsibility to lead health care in our province in a way that is informed, that listens to the front-line expertise of health-care workers," Asagwara said.

"The minister has had several days to this point to do what she should have done, which is make sure that that report is in her hands and she's read it in its entirety."

Asagwara said it should have been a top priority of Gordon to read the report and act accordingly.

Meanwhile, Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont once again accused the province of sitting on a damaging report and failing to address the concerns.

The report lays out a number of recommendations, including the development ofa system-wide strategy to support employees' well-being, launching a dialogue around work boundaries, reviewing staff ratios and compensation levels and establishing plans to reduce non-essential tasks, among other things.

It says someactions can be completed within three months, but other measureswould take longer than a year to implement.

Gordon, however, said the PC government is aware of the concerns of health-care staff and is working to address them through its $200 million planto retain, train and recruit more workers, which includes financial incentives for workers.