Nurses warned CancerCare Manitoba about dangerous staffing levels, called for changes nearly a year ago

Following a damning report from Doctors Manitoba, documents obtained by CBC reveal nurses and allied health workers at CancerCare Manitoba have been trying to highlight concerns about dangerously low staffing at the provincial cancer agency since last January.

A letter from the Manitoba Nurses Union local that represents the estimated 300 nurses within the agency's clinical departments was sent on Jan. 17 to CancerCare senior leadership, appealing for help with the staffing crunch.

"[We] are hereby bringing forward our concerns regarding difficulties with nurse retention, particularly clinical numbers. This has led to vacancies in some clinical departments greater than 50 per cent of their baseline staffing requirements," the letter said.

Workload staffing reports — a type of union reporting document — jumped to "record high levels in all clinic areas," the letter said.

More than 75 of those reports, which the letter says are intended to document that a nurse has "drawn management's attention to an unsafe, or potentially unsafe, environment, were sent to the cancer agency in 2023. That's a 400 per cent jump from 15 the year prior.

The letter emphasized the urgency of addressing staffing issues in hematology, which it said had more heavy workload reports than all other clinical areas combined, while acknowledging other clinics within the agency are facing similar crises.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, said Thursday that he's been aware of staffing issues and workplace toxicity for multiple years.

"The difficulty is, as in this CancerCare circumstance, that those one-off incidents have become chronic issues throughout the system," he said.

"Staffing shortages are the biggest contributor to these types of toxic workplace environments. There's just no way to create workplace culture when there aren't enough people doing the work."

There are about 120 allied health workers employed at the provincial cancer agency, Linklater said, including radiation therapists, mammography technologists, psychosocial oncology clinicians and laboratory technicians. 

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said Thursday that staffing issues at CancerCare haven't been addressed, despite calls for help and change from the people working there.

"The nurses do not feel as if they're valued or respected," she said.

"They are short-staffed, as is everyone in Manitoba, but they are finding that they're just getting more and more and more work added to their plates every day, and to the point where they're patient loads are unsustainable."

CancerCare has taken several steps to address the concerns raised by its nurses since the January letter, including increasing staffing levels for specific disease-site groups and actively engaging with staff, according to a Thursday email from director of communications Twylla Krueger.