Kinew government has failed in bid to fix health care

So much for the NDP’s election pledge to reduce emergency room wait times.

After nearly two years in government, the NDP has not only failed to reduce historically high wait times in ERs and urgent care centres at Winnipeg hospitals, they’re longer today than they were prior to the October 2023 election.

According to data released Thursday by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, the median wait time for ERs and urgent care centres at Winnipeg’s six hospitals in July was 3.65 hours. When the NDP won government, the median wait time was 3.52 hours. In July 2024, the median wait time was 3.42 hours.

So, it’s heading in the wrong direction. Patients are waiting far longer today to see a doctor or a nurse practitioner in ERs and urgent care centres than they were a few years ago under the former Progressive Conservative government.

The province did make some progress reducing ER wait times in 2024, but it was short lived. Wait times jumped again earlier this year and are now back to near-record highs (the peak was four hours in December 2023, two months after the NDP won government).

So what went wrong?

The only way to substantially reduce ER wait times is to hire more front-line health-care workers, add more staffed beds to medical wards and improve patient flow through hospitals to alleviate bottlenecks in emergency rooms.

According to the NDP’s 2025 provincial budget, Manitoba hired 1,255 net new front-line workers in health care across the province since taking office, including doctors and nurses, and added 233 fully staffed hospital beds.

The budget also allocated $47 million to open 97 new beds, including 60 acute care, 10 critical care, and 27 transitional care beds. But it’s clearly not being felt on the front lines.

Almost every hospital in Winnipeg has seen an increase in ER or urgent care wait times over the past year.

Seven Oaks hospital’s urgent care centre is the worst. Its wait time soared to 5.45 hours in July from 4.02 hours for the same month last year.

Whatever the NDP is doing (or isn’t doing) is not working. And the provincial government is starting to run out of excuses.

St. Boniface Hospital made some progress cutting ER wait times earlier this year. But they’ve been climbing again in recent months. In July, the median ER wait time at Manitoba’s second largest hospital was 4.85 hours, up from 4.28 hours a year ago.

Health Sciences Centre is the only hospital in Winnipeg that has reduced ER wait times over the past year, but only modestly (3.22 hours in July compared to 3.38 hours the same month last year).

No one expected the Kinew government to “fix” health care overnight, including reducing ER wait times. But after nearly two years in government — close to the mid-point in the NDP’s four-year mandate — ER and urgent care wait times are slightly worse today than they were under the former Tory government.

Whatever the NDP is doing (or isn’t doing) is not working. And the provincial government is starting to run out of excuses.

The NDP continues to blame the Tories for cutting hospital budgets and driving up wait times, not only in emergency departments but also for surgical procedures and diagnostic tests.

While that is true, the NDP has failed to turn that around despite insisting two years ago it had a plan to do so.

The upshot is that patients continue to get substandard care when they show up at hospitals. Many are waiting far longer than the median wait time to see a doctor or a nurse practitioner.

And even when they do, the sickest patients — those admitted to hospital — languish sometimes for days on gurneys in ERs because there are no beds available for them on a medical ward.

In July, the 90th percentile wait time for ERs and urgent care centres in Winnipeg (the point at which nine out of 10 patients experience shorter wait times) was 9.7 hours, up from 9.12 hours the same month last year. It’s a disaster.

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Studies have shown that admitted patients treated in ERs for extended periods of time do not get the same level of care they receive when they are treated on a medical ward. That’s because ER physicians and nurses are spread thin trying to treat admitted patients in hallways while doing their best to see newly arriving ones. It’s a nightmare for both patients and front-line workers.

The worst part is the NDP government and health authority officials don’t seem to have a plan to fix it. ER wait times in Winnipeg are more than double what they were in 2018 and are showing no signs of improvement.

Yet, beyond vague platitudes about hiring more staff, the province has no concrete strategy on how to bring those wait times down. There are no targets, no timelines and no specific plans on how to reduce the bottlenecks.

After nearly two years, the NDP has failed miserably to make good on its pledge to “fix” the health-care system.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom Brodbeck is an award-winning author and columnist with over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.

Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.