Fed-up nurses grey-list Seven Oaks hospital over safety concerns

Nurses are officially being discouraged from taking shifts at Seven Oaks General Hospital owing to long-standing safety concerns.

The Manitoba Nurses Union said Friday it had officially enacted a grey-listing — a union tactic aimed at pressing health authorities to take action in response to members’ concerns.

Union members working at the hospital voted 98 per cent in June in favour of the action.

“Nurses are describing shifts where they simply do not have enough staff to provide the care patients need. They have raised these concerns repeatedly. They’re done with delays. They need action now,” MNU president Darlene Jackson said in a news release.

Seven Oaks is the fourth hospital in Manitoba to be grey-listed by nurses, joining Health Sciences Centre (August 2025), Thompson General Hospital (November 2025) and St. Boniface Hospital (February).

The news release said security cameras have been repaired and security staffing has improved at Seven Oaks, but nurses say those measures do not address “ongoing workload concerns, and the additional overnight triage nurse position is limited to a one-year term with no guarantee it will continue.”

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said Friday that the province has been listening to nurses and taking action, adding there have been discussions with the MNU representative at Seven Oaks.

“We have been very responsive to requests and calls for more action in terms of safety, security and staffing, and we’re going to continue to,” said Asagwara, who is a registered psychiatric nurse.

“For us, as a government, there’s no finish line here. We’re going to continue to staff the front lines of the health-care system all across the province as quickly as we can.”

Asagwara said there is more work to do, but pointed to nurse vacancy rates that are lower than they’ve been “in many, many years.”

“We’re not going to take our foot off the gas in terms of safety and security,” she said. “Healthcare needs evolve. Safety needs evolve. We have to evolve with it.”

nicole.buffie@winnipegfreepress.com carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca