Manitobans recently learned that the Neepawa Health Centre closed 34 per cent of its beds due to a nursing shortage. This indefinite closure was caused by the nursing shortage and unfortunately is not surprising. The RN Projection Model warned several years ago that the rural nursing shortage was getting worse and the NDP government should have seen this coming.

In fact, the nursing shortage in Manitoba has doubled from 751 vacancies in 1999 to almost 1,500 vacancies last year. The nursing vacancy rate among RHAs varies, including a troubling high of 24 per cent in the Burntwood health region, and a province-wide average vacancy rate of 11 per cent.

Shortages like this put patient safety at risk. Overworked nurses are more likely to suffer burnout and make mistakes on the job. The proof is in the numbers: More than 70,000 “incident reports” in personal care homes last year, which document instances of medication errors, patient falls, and other undesirable outcomes. Heavy workload forms, which nurses use to document examples of staffing levels that may be unsafe for patients, have increased 275 per cent in the last five years.

Until the NDP government starts implementing real strategies to build our health workforce and make rural facilities appealing places to work, we’re going to see more indefinite bed closures like the one in Neepawa. There will be fewer rural emergencies and elderly patients will be sent to personal care homes far from their families. Rural Manitobans deserve better. In the coming months, Progressive Conservatives will put forward a strong health care plan - a plan that will take health care dollars out of bloated health bureaucracy and put it back into patient beds.