Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - January 13, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba THINK TANK COMMENT EDITOR: RUSSELL WANGERSKY 204-697-7269 ● RUSSELL.WANGERSKY@WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM A7 MONDAY JANUARY 13, 2025 Ideas, Issues, Insights MIKAELA MACKENZIE / FREE PRESS FILES The intensive care unit at the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg. Burnout among health workers remains an issue years after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and its effects are also felt among teachers and other professionals. The ongoing precarity in education and health care W HILE many of us would ideally prefer to forget the forlorn experiences associated with the COVID-19 pandemic, the lin- gering impacts of the global health crisis remain unquestionably evident within society and our public institutions. We all share common experiences navigating the turbulent circumstances of the pandemic, whether through self-isolating, physical distanc- ing, feeling over-exerted and/or fearing for the health and well-being of loved ones. The effects continue to persevere, unfortunate- ly, and have left devastating effects within many public sectors. In particular, precarity in the state of education and health-care systems glob- ally should be cause for considerable concern. Workers’ demoralization, burnout and staffing shortages have emerged to become rampant occupational issues in these public domains. The societal importance these institutions serve is indisputable. Thus, we must proactively act to uphold their ongoing efficacy to serve the public good. Although research pertaining to teacher burnout has been documented for decades, the pandemic only exacerbated many of these pre-ex- isting tensions. Abrupt pedagogical changes, adapting to virtual and hybrid learning environ- ments, enforcing physical distancing protocols, and adhering to a plethora of miscellaneous mandates amounted to additional stressors in the workplace. Teacher attrition is a looming existential threat to the profession as the United Nations continues to issue stark warnings over a global shortage. Across Canada, the staffing crisis has result- ed in reduced provincial teacher certification requirements, while various school boards resort to hiring underqualified individuals to fill vacant positions (such as parental volunteers). The situation has become quite dire in various jurisdictions. In Ontario, for example, burnout and staffing shortages have led some school boards to hire private investigators to monitor teachers on medical leave, arguably a concerted effort to dissuade further absences. Similar occupational tensions are prevalent in health care, as well. Throughout the pandemic, nurses were expected to commit to additional shifts, working daunting overtime hours, and were egregiously overstretched in caring for an unrealistic number of patients. During the worst stages of the pandemic, reports indicate that ICU nurses were stretched from individual-focused patient treatment to three-to-one care, decried by some physicians as “ridiculous.” Being tasked with a plethora of additional demands while being inadequately resourced has evidently taken its toll. Attrition is a pressing issue as emerging reports indicate that 30 per cent of Manitoba nurses are exiting the profession before age 35. Recruiting internationally trained nurses and incentivizing resigned nurses to re-enter the field are ongoing ventures to ameliorate this unset- tling reality. The predicament in health care is not confined to nurses, however, as firefighters and paramed- ics are comparably facing staffing crises and burnout. In addition to inadequate staffing and serving extensive overtime hours, psycholog- ical injuries incurred on duty are a mounting concern. Data from the City of Winnipeg outlines the steady increase in first responders’ absentee- ism due to psychological claims, totalling 17,626 hours in 2024. Consequently, insufficient staffing amounts to vacant shifts which, in turn, results in compromised health-care accessibility to our fellow citizens. Another variable complicating this intricate conundrum are precarious working environ- ments. In 2023, Manitoba Workplace Safety and Health officially categorized public schools as the province’s most dangerous work environments, as education workers’ risk of being victim to ver- bal and/or physical injury significantly surpassed other places of employment. Escalating violence experienced by Manitoba nurses is also of paramount consternation. Mani- toba nurses have resoundingly expressed feeling unsafe in the work environment, with ample pub- licly disseminated incidents of violence exercised against our essential public workers. The intent of this piece is not to advocate for preferential treatment to some and not all. We were all unquestionably affected by the strenu- ous circumstances of the pandemic and all have relatable stories and experiences. However, we need to acknowledge the unique stressors within these public sectors, as documented burnout is an empirically verified development. To be blatantly clear, there is no immediate, easy solution to mitigate all of these issues. Amelioration efforts will necessitate a long-term, concerted, collective effort to rebuild and bolster our public-education and health-care infrastruc- tures. Our education and health-care workers serve a pivotal societal role in servicing the public good. For the benefit of all Manitobans, the crucial need to ameliorate these pressing tensions cannot be understated. We need to recognize burnout as a legitimate phenomenon, validate workers’ experiences, and empower their professional agency. In doing so, all Manitobans will benefit from enhanced public education and health care. Jordan Laidlaw is a public school teacher, union activist, and PhD can- didate at the University of Manitoba in educational administration. In Trump’s fantasy world, fish set fire to Los Angeles IN what’s becoming a somewhat commonplace event, we’ve been inundated with apocalyptic images, currently emanating from Los Angeles. As of Friday, wildfires were still tearing through neighbourhoods across the region, more than 150,000 people have been ordered to evacuate and, as of Sunday, at least 16 have died. Once upon a time, activists and scientists alike thought that once people saw the impacts of climate change first-hand, they’d be moved to believe in the urgency of the crisis and, crucially, to act. But as with hurricanes and other extreme weather events that have come before, the California wildfires are proof that isn’t the case. Rather than baring the truth for all to see, misin- formation and new flavours of climate denial are thriving in the chaos. These blazes have been so hard to control be- cause a rapid switch from a very wet 2023 winter to very dry conditions over the last nine months or so created the perfect fire fuel in southern Cal- ifornia — first by encouraging grass and brush to grow, then stripping the vegetation of moisture. With strong Santa Ana winds further dehydrat- ing the land and enabling the fires that catch to spread rapidly, the conditions were perfect for an inferno. With extreme weather events being the culmi- nation of a range of threats and vulnerabilities, an attribution study is needed to properly assess how much climate change played a role in these conflagrations. But there are things we already know about the link between a heating planet and wildfires. Multiple studies show that warming is exacer- bating the conditions conducive to fires, such as low relative humidity and vapour-pressure defi- cits (the difference between the amount of water in the air and the maximum amount of water the air can hold). And that whiplash between very wet and very dry conditions is a phenomenon that has already increased globally by 31 per cent to 66 per cent since the mid-20th century and will continue to accelerate as the planet warms further, according to a paper published in Nature on Thursday. But these aren’t facts you’re likely to see if you hop onto Elon Musk’s X or check what Donald Trump, the incoming U.S. president, is saying. Instead, you’ll find posts amplified on social media blaming the fires on nearly everything but climate change, including: low reservoir levels; diversity, equality and inclusion efforts by the Los Angeles fire department; efforts to save a tiny endangered fish; donations of firefighting equipment to Ukraine; direct energy weapons, also known as space lasers. The facts are that most of California’s reser- voirs are at above-average levels for this time of year. Firefighters did run out of water, but not due to any water management decisions. The head of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power explained at a news conference that although three million gallons of water were available when the fire in the Pacific Palisades started, the demand was four times greater than “we’ve ever seen in the system.” The heat from the fire also damaged water pipes, compounding the problem. With more than 7,500 firefighters putting their lives on the line, are we really going to believe they’ve been distracted by DEI efforts? Dona- tions to Ukraine, meantime, were made back in 2022 and were of unused surplus equipment. About 40 per cent of L.A.’s water comes from state-controlled projects connected to northern California, where the fish called the Delta smelt lives, and the state has limited the water deliv- ered this year to protect vital ecosystems. Yet there is no water-supply shortage in the southern part of the state right now; so efforts by Trump, who called the smelt “essentially worthless” in a social media post blaming California Gov. Gavin Newsom for the fires, to connect enormous fires to a three-inch fish are pure fantasy. Speaking of fantasy, evidence for the use of laser beams to start fires on purpose is limit- ed to digitally altered videos, alongside false claims that the colour blue protects against such weapons; the same conspiracy theory was widely spread after the Maui wildfires in 2023. I’ll also just leave you with a story from 2024 in which a Canadian man who claimed that the government was purposefully lighting wildfires was found to be purposefully lighting wildfires. These false claims are very easy to make but take time to debunk. Some claims also rely on a sliver of truth which is then distorted to minimize the impacts of climate change. Ross Clark, a climate skeptic columnist in Brit- ish magazine The Spectator, blamed this fire on the U.S. being better at tackling them. Fires are a natural part of California’s ecosystem, he posited; by interrupting the natural cycle, deadwood accumulates and gives subsequent forest more fuel. There’s some truth to this. But when citing Valerie Trouet, professor of dendrology at the University of Arizona, Clark completely ignored the other part of her argument emphasizing how human-induced climate change has made “the hot California summers even hotter, the seasonally dry Californian forests even drier and the long fire season even longer.” This is the new denialism. Without saying outright that climate change is false, skeptics blow other factors out of proportion and minimize the impacts of global warming — providing the opposite of a nuanced picture. These tactics aren’t new to the L.A. wildfires, but we are entering a new era. With Trump back in power, Musk using his platform to spread lies and Mark Zuckerberg giving up on fact-checking at Meta Inc., the internet is set to become even more of a Wild West where conspiracy theories and untruths rule the land. Accountability and evidence-based debate are dealt yet another blow. It’s always worth examining whether fire and water management could have been improved — governments sometimes do create vulnerabilities through neglect or maladaptation. With these lessons we can strive to improve crisis response, while prioritizing efforts to ameliorate the global warming that’s making the threats bigger in the first place. Sadly, lesson-learning isn’t what Trump and his fellow deniers are trying to achieve with their online rants. Even as the climate crisis burns down our houses, we can’t rely on that compelling world leaders to act. — Bloomberg JORDAN LAIDLAW LARA WILLIAMS ;