Staffing questions loom large as St. Boniface Hospital close to opening expanded, redeveloped ER By: Tyler Searle Posted: 6:41 PM CDT Wednesday, Sep. 10, 2025

A massive redevelopment of the St. Boniface Hospital emergency department is just weeks from opening but it’s not clear how Winnipeg’s health authority will staff the expanded facility.

The project — which will triple the size of the emergency department — was slated for completion next week, but was “postponed due to some outstanding deficiencies.” Instead, it is now expected to open Oct. 2, the hospital’s director of health services said in an email to staff Monday.

The delay is due to “behind-the-scenes work” that will “not interfere with continued walk-throughs or orientations in the new area,” Erin James told staff.

“I apologize for this disruption. As always, we will adjust as a team and make this work! Thank you for your understanding.”

The redeveloped facility will open amid rising emergency wait times in Winnipeg and health-care staffing challenges across the province — including a physician shortage that left Manitoba with the second-lowest number of doctors per capita in Canada last year.

A source familiar with staffing at St. Boniface, who did not want to be identified because they’re not authorized to speak publicly, told the Free Press they were not aware of any new physician positions opening alongside the expanded emergency facility.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority did not respond before deadline Wednesday to questions about medical staffing.

The St. Boniface redevelopment broke ground in 2022 and was expected to cost $141 million. It involved 18,600 square feet of renovations and an 86,200 sq. ft. expansion of the central Winnipeg campus, the Free Press reported previously.

According to the hospital’s website, anticipated upgrades include: an expanded waiting room, resuscitation room and triage area; private exam rooms; a dedicated mental-health treatment area; and a diagnostic imaging suite, complete with a new CT scanner and X-ray machines.

The project also involves a new entrance and parking bay for up to 10 ambulances, a new south entrance to reduce congestion, an improved south parking lot and an outdoor garden space.

“Our emergency department redevelopment project was strategically developed in consultation with the community to improve patient and staff experiences, and ensure timelier access to care, while maximizing functionality and flexibility and providing expanded space for increased numbers of patients,” the website says.

“It is important to note ER wait times won’t be fixed with new space alone.”

The former Progressive Conservative government promised such an expansion as early as 2017, amid a plan to close and consolidate several of the city’s emergency departments.

St. Boniface’s current emergency room has remained open throughout the renovations.

Data released late last month by the WRHA showed the median wait time for treatment in emergency rooms and urgent-care centres at Winnipeg’s six hospitals in July was 3.65 hours — that’s up from 3.42 hours in July 2024.

The data showed St. Boniface’s ER logged a median wait time of 4.85 hours in the same period, up from 4.28 hours the previous year.

On Wednesday, Doctors Manitoba said physicians are looking forward to the redeveloped department, which will “provide patients with more privacy and dignity while receiving care, and new modern spaces to help to recruit and retain physicians and other health providers.”

“However, it is important to note ER wait times won’t be fixed with new space alone, as longer waits occur when patients back up in the ER waiting for inpatient care,” a spokesperson said via email.

The spokesperson said “access block” continues to present issues for city emergency departments.

The term describes a scenario in which patients continue to pile up in an emergency room area while waiting for inpatient beds elsewhere in the hospital, limiting the ability to move them out of the department.

“Additional inpatient capacity continues to be the best solution to Winnipeg’s lengthy ER wait times,” the spokesperson said.

When construction on the redevelopment began, former health minister Audrey Gordon said the emergency department could see up to 55,000 patients annually after the work was completed.

Premier Wab Kinew, then the leader of the Opposition, criticized the Progressive Conservative government at the time.

“How are we going to staff that emergency room?” Kinew asked in a scrum with reporters. “Our system lost capacity, our system lost nurses. Now it’s the patients who are feeling the impact.”

In July, the province said it had added at least 732 net new nurses in the last year, with more than half of those positions in Winnipeg. The following month, Kinew said Manitoba has added 201 net new physicians since the NDP formed government in October 2023.

Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets celebrated those additions, but warned Manitoba still ranks second-last compared to other provinces, with 219 physicians per 100,000 residents.

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca