Manitoba health care news: violence related injury claims among Manitoba health care workers have jumped 41 percent since 2022, and the province’s health care unions say the response from regulators is not keeping up.
By Maplestime News Desk | Winnipeg, Manitoba | November 12, 2026
Sources: CBC News | Last updated: November 12, 2026
Key Takeaways
- Violence related injury claims in Manitoba health care are up 41 percent since 2022, with 520 time loss injuries in 2025, up from 368 in 2022.
- Health care recorded 2,827 accepted time loss injury claims last year, more than any other tracked industry in Manitoba.
- Nearly one in five injury claims in health care was due to violence. In 2025, health care accounted for 39 percent of all assault or violent act injuries in the province: 844 of 2,187.
- The interim report, prepared by Centre West Consulting and commissioned by the Manitoba Nurses Union and the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, makes seven recommendations.
- Only one prosecution has targeted a health care employer in Manitoba since 2008.
- The unions want emergency departments and other subsectors designated high risk, 10 more safety and health officers, and a wider definition of serious incident.
What the numbers show
The Workers Compensation Board data cited in the report shows 520 time loss injuries related to violence in health care in 2025, up from 368 in 2022. Health care recorded 2,827 accepted time loss injury claims last year, more than any other tracked industry, and about 20 percent of all time loss injuries in the province. Nearly one in five injury claims in the field was due to violence, and in 2025 health care accounted for 39 percent of all injuries related to assault or violent acts in Manitoba, 844 out of 2,187.
What the unions want
The report makes seven recommendations:
- Treat violent events at hospitals the same way Manitoba labour regulators treat high risk industrial and construction jobs.
- Give health care subsectors such as emergency departments a high risk designation, bringing tighter enforcement.
- Expand the definition of serious incident under Manitoba occupational health and safety legislation to include violent events that may result in serious psychological injury, or that involve a security or police response, giving employers more responsibility for reporting and investigation.
- Hire 10 more safety and health officers.
- Establish dedicated Workplace Safety and Health enforcement teams for specific sectors.
- Broader administrative penalties and more prosecutions related to health care violence under occupational health and safety laws.
- The labour minister should publish more information on improvement orders online and set additional performance targets to gauge how well measures against workplace violence are working.
Why this matters for staffing and wait times
The report says workplace violence must be addressed to deal with short staffing and long patient waits, because it affects staff recruitment and retention. Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health identifies 22 industry classifications as high risk, including window cleaning, sawmills, transportation and roofing, based on higher than average rates of injuries requiring time away from work. Health care is not among them, and the unions say that gap is the problem.
What is missing so far
No one is named in the CBC report as published: no union leader, minister, employer representative or worker, and no direct quote is printed. No response from the labour minister, the Manitoba government, Shared Health or any hospital employer is reported, and the article gives no formal title for the interim report. Maplestime will update this story as responses come in.
Maplestime will provide updates from Manitoba health care workplace safety as announcements are made.
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Do you think Manitoba hospitals should be treated as high risk workplaces, or is this another report that will sit on a shelf while nurses keep getting hurt? Tell us in the comments. And share this with every Canadian who has a nurse in the family.
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