Gallery: Jets fans gather at Whiteout parties Posted: 10:30 PM CDT Tuesday, Apr. 23, 2024 Last Modified: 8:29 AM CDT Wednesday, Apr. 24, 2024

Real investment required

Re: Condition critical (Aug. 22)

Manitoba’s hospital crisis is often blamed on the aging population, bed shortages and staffing challenges. But these are symptoms, not causes. The facts show the situation has deteriorated far beyond what demographic change alone can explain.

At the Health Sciences Centre, all 58 treatment beds are routinely full, with another dozen ambulance patients lined up in hallways under the care of a single nurse. Thirty to 40 people wait in the ER for hours — many for 10 to 20 hours — before seeing a physician because “there’s no place for them to go.” Patients are deteriorating while they wait. The 90th-percentile wait time hit 12.3 hours in June — triple pre-pandemic levels. Manitoba now has among the highest ER wait times in Canada.

Removing trade uncertainty tops Harold Kriewald’s wish list.

On Wednesday, he hadn’t heard from suppliers about which — if any — products at Stalwart Appliances in Winnipeg will be hit with new levies.

Canadian tariffs on $26.7 billion worth of United States imports are set to begin Sept. 8. They come before the holiday season, the retail sector’s busiest stretch.

“(If) the forecast is uncertain, you as the consumer are not always prone to want to make a big purchase,” said Kriewald, Stalwart Appliances’s owner. “Uncertainty is probably the worst thing. The tariffs, of course, bring that uncertainty.”

A 22-year-old security guard is in stable condition after being stabbed during a robbery at a west Winnipeg Dollarama Tuesday afternoon, police say.

Winnipeg police were called to the retail store at 2727 Portage Ave. in the Courts of St. James around 4 p.m. after receiving reports a security guard had been stabbed.

Police said the guard confronted a man suspected of shoplifting and directed him to leave the store. The man allegedly pulled out a sharp-edged weapon and stabbed the guard in the upper body before fleeing with stolen merchandise.

Officers found the guard seriously injured. He was taken to hospital in unstable condition and was later upgraded to stable.