Family members of patients and health-care professionals say Winnipeg nursing homes don't have enough properly trained staff to deal with their patients.

Darlene Dowse, a former care-home nurse, said she began to see problems when she put her father, Ray Dowse, into St. Adolphe Personal Care Home in 2006, two years before he died at age 81.

"He was a downhill ski racer, he was a bike racer, he used to do triathlons; he was a very athletic guy," she recalled. Dowse participated in the Manitoba Marathon even as a senior, and had a positive outlook and a great sense of humour, his family says.

But in the care home, Dowse said, her father suffered for months with chronic diarrhea and abdominal pains. He was finally admitted to the emergency room in critical condition last Christmas with an obstructed bowel.

Dowse moved him to Meadowood Manor in Winnipeg last February. There he suffered falls that caused extensive bruising, the family says.

Dowse said it didn't take her long to realise what was going on.

"A health care aide at that facility spoke to me. One night, or one evening, two health care aides had to look after 44 clients," she told CBC News.

"That's ridiculous. How can you give good care? How can you even give the basics?"

The staffing issue is not limited to the Meadowood home. In a study last year, the Manitoba Nurses Union found for many night-shift nurses, the ratio of patients to staff was 80 to one.

Ollie Ewert, who has spent more than a decade working as a psychiatric nurse in Winnipeg nursing homes, said at one of her placements, staff were run literally off their feet.

"Staff had to work double shifts. They didn't have the staffing and consequently, this is why staff worked 32 hours in a row, 19 days in a row," she said.

"Staff were fearful of expressing their concerns for fear of retaliation," she said.

The Manitoba government has committed $40 million to hire an additional 400 staff at care homes in the province over four years. About 120 of them are already at work.

But Ray Koop, spokesman for Meadowood Manor, said many problems persist despite the extra help.

"Even though we have additional funds to provide additional staffing, it continues to be a problem trying to recruit nurses and health care aides, especially," he said.