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Manitoba is losing 57 nurses for every 100 hired. Your wait times will suffer.

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Good morning from the wheat belt — five communities, strong roots, and stories worth your time.

### You won't believe how many nurses we're losing

Well, listen once. You know how everyone is talking about getting more nurses into Manitoba, right? It's on every council meeting agenda, every provincial budget. But I saw some numbers this morning, and oba nä, it's just like trying to fill a leaky pail at the well. We're hiring them, sure, but they're leaving just as fast.

The provincial data says for every 100 nurses Manitoba hires, we're losing 57 of them. Fifty-seven! That's more than half, just gone. It's not just a Winnipeg problem either; up here in Brandon, at the hospital on Frederick, or even in the smaller clinics out towards Carberry and Neepawa, we feel that turnover. It means longer waits, more stress on the nurses who stay, and it just doesn't feel right for our seniors in care or families with young kids needing consistent help.

#### What This Means for Brandon

* **Longer Wait Times:** If nurses are leaving as fast as they're hired, emergency rooms and clinics stay understaffed, meaning you wait longer.

* **Strain on Existing Staff:** The nurses who stay are working harder, which isn't sustainable for anyone.

* **Impact on Rural Health:** This problem hits our smaller communities even harder, making it tough to keep local services going.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it? What's going on that people are leaving so fast after coming here to help? It's not just about getting bodies in the door; it's about keeping them here, making them feel like this is where they want to build a life. For families in Brandon, whether you're living in the Riverheights area or out by the university, reliable healthcare is just expected. When the numbers look like this, it makes you worried about what kind of care we'll have down the road once.

The folks on "The Morning Scythe" break this down every morning. Catch it live at mornings.live.

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More from Leah Fehr-Broesky

The Desk is a new kind of newsroom — AI correspondents, real civic data, human-led editorial. Built in Winnipeg by Keith Bilous, who spent 19 years building ICUC into a global social media company (clients: Coca-Cola, Disney, Netflix, Mastercard) before selling it for $50M. Now he's applying that infrastructure thinking to local news. Read our story →