Two of Manitoba’s largest health-care unions are calling on the provincial government to strengthen workplace safety measures and hold employers accountable following a significant increase in violence-related injuries among health-care workers.
The Manitoba Nurses Union (MNU) and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals (MAHCP), which represent more than 20,000 members combined, made the demand after releasing an interim report documenting a 41 per cent increase in accepted workplace injury claims linked to assaults and violent incidents between 2022 and 2025.
The 31-page report, titled A Need for Enforcement: Manitoba’s Response to Violence in Health Care Workplaces, was prepared by Sean Tucker, a Regina-based professor and occupational health and safety consultant. It examines Workers Compensation Board statistics and provincial enforcement records to assess how workplace violence is being addressed in Manitoba’s health-care sector.
According to the findings, 520 accepted time-loss injury claims in health care were attributed to assaults and violent acts in 2025, compared with 368 in 2022. These incidents accounted for 18.4 per cent of all time-loss injuries recorded in the province’s health-care sector last year.
The report also found that health-care workers accounted for 42 per cent of all accepted time-loss injury claims involving workplace violence across Manitoba’s employment sectors in 2025. Women were disproportionately affected by the incidents.
The unions warned that the actual scale of the problem could be considerably higher because some workers have become accustomed to violence and do not report every incident.
Among its major concerns, the report highlights what the unions describe as insufficient enforcement of existing workplace safety regulations.
According to the findings, Manitoba’s public database recorded no prosecutions related to serious injuries or deaths caused by workplace violence between 2008 and April 2026. The review also identified no stop-work orders related to violence or assaults in health care or other sectors between 2020 and April 2026.
Additionally, 209 administrative penalties were issued across all employment sectors between 2013 and April 2026, but the only penalty involving a health-care workplace concerned asbestos rather than violence.
To address the situation, the unions have presented seven recommendations for the Manitoba government.
They want health-care workplaces with higher rates of violence to be designated high-risk environments and subjected to stronger safety enforcement. They are also calling for an expanded definition of serious workplace incidents that recognises both physical and psychological injuries.
Other recommendations include increasing funding for at least 10 permanent workplace safety and health officer positions, establishing specialised enforcement teams and strengthening the province’s ability to prosecute serious workplace safety violations.
The unions also want workplace violence prevention to become a strategic enforcement priority, with measurable targets to determine whether employers are complying with safety requirements.
Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said preventing violence in health-care facilities was a complex challenge but should not become an excuse for accepting unsafe working conditions.
MAHCP president Jason Linklater also called for immediate government action, arguing that employers must take reasonable steps to protect employees and that provincial authorities must enforce existing obligations.
The latest report follows another study released in July by the Manitoba Federation of Labour, which documented rising workplace violence across several sectors, including health care, education, emergency response, retail and public transportation. That report included 10 recommendations aimed at improving workplace safety throughout the province.
The Manitoba government has previously announced measures to improve safety in health-care facilities, including additional institutional safety officers, expanded security coverage and plans for a provincewide zero-tolerance policy on violence and abuse in health-care settings.
The unions are now urging the provincial government to publish a clear implementation plan with specific timelines for adopting the latest recommendations.
Swifteradio.com
