Parton celebrates women’s rights

Zoo caring for orphaned polar bear cub

The Assiniboine Park Zoo is caring for an orphaned polar bear cub that arrived from Churchill Thursday after conservation officers determined it was incapable of surviving on its own.

The officers found the bear’s dead mother.

Orphaned cubs have a high mortality rate, and a medical team was quickly sent to Churchill to support the cub’s initial needs, the zoo said in a media release.

The team arrived in Winnipeg late Thursday night.

Frustration mounts as drug raids sweep problems out of downtown, into West End

West End business owners say their neighbourhood has been under siege for months, and some believe downtown police drug sweeps have made things worse by pushing more street disorder in their direction — and pushing customers away.

NDP touts health-care gains, but critics question impact on ER wait times

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara doesn’t mince words when describing how bad things are in the province’s emergency departments and urgent-care centres.

“The wait times that we are seeing in Manitoba are unacceptable,” said Asagwara in an interview with the Free Press.

“I hear from families, I hear from providers, I hear from Manitobans who are concerned about the wait times that they’re seeing, that they’re experiencing, and those concerns are valid — I share those concerns.”

So what is the NDP, who promised voters nearly three years ago it had the answers to bring down wait times, doing about it?

Bombers’ offence stalls in 22-19 loss to Elks

It was a microcosm of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers’ season to this point: a first half that burned bright only to be dowsed in cold water.

The Bombers began the first leg of their mid-season gauntlet with a 22-19 loss to the Edmonton Elks at Commonwealth Stadium in the Alberta capital on Friday night.

Elks quarterback Cody Fajardo orchestrated an eight-play, 54-yard drive that set up a 40-yard game-winning field goal by Vincent Blanchard that snuck inside the left upright with zeros on the clock.

The drive, which was plagued by poor tackling by the Bombers defence, came after Bombers kicker Sergio Castillo tied the game at 19-19 on a 53-yard boot with 1:41 remaining in the contest.

ER wait times have hit all-time highs in Winnipeg and are impacting nearly all aspects of hospital operations

On most days at Health Sciences Centre’s adult emergency department, all 58 treatment beds are filled with sick patients. Another dozen or so brought in by ambulance line the hallways on stretchers, with only one nurse to look after them.

Out in the waiting room, about 30 or 40 people — sometimes more — are slouched in chairs in pain or discomfort, waiting hours to see a doctor. Most have been assessed by a triage nurse, but many will have to wait 10 to 20 hours to be examined by a physician because there’s no room for them in the treatment area.

Some patients leave because they can no longer tolerate the excruciating wait, only to return days later, sicker than they were before.

Welcome to the emergency department at Manitoba’s largest hospital, where some of the highest-acuity patients seek medical care but now face delays that were unimaginable a few years ago.