Those staff will first need to undergo an orientation and on-the-job training. In the meantime, Siragusa said nurses from other fields who helped out in ICUs during the second wave have already volunteered to pitch in.
Lanette Siragusa, chief nursing officer for Shared Health, says Manitoba is adding 19 ICU beds across four hospitals in the coming days to accommodate the recent surge.(John Woods/The Canadian Press)
Not all of the nurses being shuffled into ICUs have agreed to the move. Manitoba Shared Health said in a statement that though many have volunteered to do so, an agreement struck with the Manitoba Nurses Union amid the second wave still allows health authorities to reassign nurses to priority areas outside of their home base.
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister Launches Pandemic Sick Leave Program
In Winnipeg, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister introduces the Manitoba Pandemic Sick Leave program which will support existing federal and provincial funding. Employers will receive up to $600 per employee for up to five days of COVID-19 related leave. This includes testing, getting immunized, side effects and self-isolating. The sick leave program will run until September 25. (no interpretation)
By IRIS SAMUELS
Associated Press/Report for America
BABB, Mont. (AP) â On a cloudy spring day, hundreds lined up in their cars on the Canadian side of the border crossing that separates Alberta and Montana. They had driven for hours and camped out in their vehicles in hopes of receiving the seasonâs hottest commodity â a COVID-19 vaccine â from a Native American tribe that was giving out its excess doses.
The Blackfeet tribe in northern Montana provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines last month to its First Nations relatives and others from across the border, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the United States and Canada are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.
US tribe shares vaccine with relatives, neighbours in Canada
May 5, 2021
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
BABB, Mont.- On a cloudy spring day, hundreds lined up in their cars on the Canadian side of the border crossing that separates Alberta and Montana. They had driven for hours and camped out in their vehicles in hopes of receiving the season’s hottest commodity, a COVID-19 vaccine, from a Native American tribe that was giving out its excess doses.
The Blackfeet tribe in northern Montana provided about 1,000 surplus vaccines last month to its First Nations relatives and others from across the border, in an illustration of the disparity in speed at which the United States and Canada are distributing doses. While more than 30% of adults in the U.S. are fully vaccinated, in Canada that figure is about 3%.