Prepare for rural ER crunch in summer, Manitoba doctors advise By: Carol Sanders Posted: 6:42 PM CDT Thursday, Jun. 26, 2025

As Manitobans take summer holidays, Doctors Manitoba is urging them to be prepared for rural hospital emergency room closures and staffing shortages before they hit the road.

“This year we’re expecting more travel within our province as many Manitobans are choosing to avoid travel to the United States,” said president Nichelle Desilets, a family physician in Neepawa.

“This is a great thing, of course, but we physicians want to ensure that Manitobans are prepared to access emergency medical help across rural Manitoba no matter where we are,” Desilets said in an online news conference Thursday.

The organization that advocates on behalf of doctors issued a public advisory about services in rural Manitoba.

Changing hours of operation and periodic closures in the summer can make it difficult to anticipate whether — or when — a rural ER will be open.

“It’s a bit of a guessing game,” said Desilets. She recommended Manitobans consult its ruralcare.ca website for answers.

“This isn’t a new problem — it’s been building for many years,” she said.

In August 2024, a Doctors Manitoba analysis showed just 18 rural hospitals were reliably open 24-7; 25 were open part time or had frequent gaps in coverage; and 25 were closed due to temporary or long-term suspensions of service.

This year, “the prolonged uncertainty and short-staffing is taking a toll,” Desilets said, referring to a members’ survey taken by the organization earlier this month.

“We found high levels of burnout and distress, with nearly a third of emergency room doctors indicating that they are considering reducing their working hours or resigning their duties completely if their work conditions don’t change,” she said.

Doctors Manitoba forecasts that 28 ERs are expected to be fully closed, including five considered a temporary suspension, after reviewing physician feedback alongside this summer’s rural ER schedules.

“Twenty, or about one-quarter of rural hospitals, will have their emergency rooms reliably open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; 24 more ERs are expected to operate with reduced hours of operation or periodic closures, and this is often due to physician or nurse shortages,” Desilets said.

Several ERs that used to be reliably open 24-7 are experiencing periodic closures, including communities such as Gimli, Minnedosa, Carman and Crystal City, she said.

Three of the largest ERs outside Winnipeg — Brandon, Morden-Winkler and Steinbach — have high vacancy levels, she said. “While these ERs are still expected to be open 24-7, the reduced physician coverage will likely lead to increased workload for staff and longer waits for patients,” the family doctor said.

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said that since the NDP formed government in ;ate 2023, the province has hired 50 net new rural physicians for emergency rooms.

“We’re moving things in the right direction while recognizing that the system is still incredibly challenged,” Asagwara said in an interview late Thursday.

Under the former Tory administration “the closures were greater than they are under our government,” the minister said.

In June 2022, Doctors Manitoba forecast closures and temporary suspensions of ER service in about 60 per cent of the 68 hospitals in northern and rural Manitoba.

“There are still a lot of pressures on emergency departments across the province,” Asagwara said. “That is what happens when you cut health care and close emergency rooms over seven and a half years.”

Prairie Mountain Health, based in western Manitoba, said in a statement Thursday that scheduling gaps that may arise at its largest ER in Brandon are being managed, and that wait times “have many factors and are not strictly tied to staffing.”

“It’s important to note that physician, nursing, and diagnostic services are all critical components of a functioning emergency department — all three must be in place to ensure safe and effective patient care,” it said. “We continue to closely monitor and co-ordinate these resources to ensure stable coverage,” the health authority said.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, said the province needs a “real plan” to retain, train, and recruit more staff, including lab and X-ray technologists and paramedics.

He said there are 45 open lab and X-ray positions and 200 vacant paramedic positions, resulting in some 911 callers waiting an hour or more for life-saving care to arrive.

“Closed ERs force paramedics to transport patients further distances for care, taking ambulances and the skilled professionals who staff them out of rotation for longer, and compounding the staffing shortage,” Linklater said.

PC health critic Kathleen Cook accused the NDP of breaking its campaign promise to fix health care.

“This situation in rural ERs is particularly troubling this year as we expect to see more people travelling within Manitoba or within Canada instead of leaving the country,” the MLA for Roblin said.

If regional centres such as Brandon, Boundary Trails and Steinbach, which typically have two or three ER doctors per shift, are down to a single physician, it’s worrisome, Cook said.

“That’s going to result in longer wait times for everybody and it’s also going to burn out their staff. It’s not a good situation to be in.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

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