Au naturel cooking experience can sizzle

Steinbach ER nurses ask for triage help as wait-averse Winnipeg patients strain hospital capacity

Nurses at Bethesda Regional Health Centre in Steinbach have called on the regional health authority and provincial government to hire an extra triage nurse for the emergency department as increased visits from Winnipeggers stress the rural hospital.

Forty nurses from the hospital’s emergency department signed an open letter stating because of the current staffing ratio, nurses are witnessing “excessive and unacceptable safety risks on a daily basis.”

“(Nurses) constantly fear for the safety of our patients and community,” said the July 28 letter, addressed to Premier Wab Kinew, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, Southern Health-Sante Sud interim CEO Dana Human and the health authority’s board chair, Adam Monteith.

It is common for patients at the hospital to wait more than an hour before being seen by a triage nurse after they arrive, and eight hours before their conditions are reassessed, the letter states, adding the emergency department’s sole triage nurse can be responsible for up to 30 patients at a time.

Travellers in Winnipeg scramble to rebook flights as WestJet attendants reach tentative deal

WestJet flights were back in the skies Monday after a brief flight-attendant strike grounded planes across the country. But even as their cancelled flights were rebooked, many travellers spent the holiday scrambling to adapt to new, altered plans.

By 11:30 a.m. about 200 people were queued up in front of WestJet’s check-in booths at Winnipeg Richardson International Airport. Many were there to check in for an afternoon flight to Toronto, which, along with most other WestJet flights for the day, was now listed on the departure board as proceeding as planned.

Others, unable to reach someone on WestJet’s apparently overburdened customer service hotline, were hoping to find a solution to altered travel plans that had delayed their travel by days, or in some cases rerouted them through other cities.

Dan Schenkeveld was among them. The Kamloops resident spent most of the past month on a deep wilderness canoe trip in Nunavut. When he got back in cellular service range, he learned that a WestJet flight attendant strike was looming: “We’re aware of the issues around unpaid work, and we’re compassionate to that,” he said.

‘This is Mommy’s park’: city honours two-time Olympic champion curler Lawes

When Kaitlyn Lawes drives through her childhood neighbourhood, she’ll now be able to point to a park bearing her name — and tell her daughters that anything is possible.

On Tuesday, the City of Winnipeg officially renamed Lindenwood Drive West Park in honour of the two-time Olympic gold medallist curler.

Lawes won her first Olympic gold medal in 2014 as part of Team Jennifer Jones at the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia and captured a second gold medal in mixed doubles with John Morris at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea.

She has also won the 2018 World Women’s Curling Championship and the 2015 Scotties Tournament of Hearts, earned silver and bronze medals at the World Junior Curling Championships, and represented Manitoba at the Canada Games.

Concordia doctor denies responsibility for Calgary man’s permanent disability

A Concordia Hospital doctor accused in a negligence lawsuit after a Calgary man was left permanently disabled when he was given a massive overdose of a powerful sedative has denied she ordered he be given the drug.

Zachary Hoogerdyk’s father, Edward Hoogerdyk, and the Alberta government filed their statement of claim earlier this year in Court of King’s Bench naming the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, provincial health agency Shared Health, Concordia Hospital, Dr. Anna Ziomek and two other hospital staff as defendants.

Hoogerdyk, who was 23 at the time, went to Concordia’s urgent-care centre with flu-like symptoms and worsening breathing difficulties on March 25, 2024 while he was in Winnipeg on business and to visit family, the lawsuit says.

The claim alleges Ziomek diagnosed Hoogerdyk with low levels of oxygen in his blood and a strain of the flu, before ordering him to be intubated.

What’s open, what’s closed, what’s up in Winnipeg on Terry Fox Day

The first Monday in August marks Terry Fox Day in Manitoba, honouring the legendary Canadian who was born in Winnipeg in 1958. 

Government overrides school board in ‘mature minor’ controversy

The Manitoba government has vetoed the Steinbach school board’s plan to override common law by making parents the ultimate authority on all student health issues.

Since Hanover School Division trustees approved a motion to disregard the category of “mature minors” just over two months ago, there has been widespread debate.

Trustees unanimously voted to stop honouring the mature minor doctrine — in which teenagers 16 and older are automatically assumed to have the maturity to make medical decisions for themselves — at the end of the 2025-26 school year.

“We would just encourage the Hanover School Division to do what they do best, which is providing high-level, quality education for the kids in their community,” Education Minister Tracy Schmidt said in an interview on Tuesday about her July 22 directive to the board to repeal its motion.