Distressed MDs confirm diagnosis again and again: Manitoba’s health-care system in grave condition By: Tom Brodbeck Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Thursday, May. 11, 2023

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/05/2023 (851 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I don’t recall the last time we’ve seen this many doctors in Manitoba speaking out against government’s handling of the health-care system.

Normally, physicians — or any medical staff — are loath to openly criticize government or health authorities for fear of retribution. They usually prefer to stick to medicine, treat patients and stay out of politics.

But the deeper the health-care system falls into disarray, the more this normally quiet group of practitioners is sharing its views publicly.

Dr. Jason Crosby, one of Manitoba’s most respected orthopedic surgeons, went on the record in December to voice his concern over the province’s decision to send patients out of province for surgery to reduce backlogs. He likened the move to putting a bandage on a hemorrhaging artery.

Those resources should be used to build surgical capacity in Manitoba, Crosby said in an interview with the Free Press. Sending patients out of province is nothing more than a “shell game” that will end up costing taxpayers more, he said.

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Dr. Sandor Demeter, a Winnipeg physician and associate professor in the department of community health sciences at the University of Manitoba, wrote an op-ed piece in the Free Press last week blasting the health-care bureaucracy for buying an expensive diagnostic machine and letting it sit unused for the past four months.

Health Sciences Centre, whose funding is controlled by Shared Health (one of five bureaucracies now running health care in Manitoba), bought a PET/CT scanner, which is used to detect and analyze cancer, last year for $3 million. Despite the high demand for scans, Shared Health still hasn’t hired staff to run it, Demeter wrote.

“For the sake of patient care, and as one of the physicians who established the Winnipeg PET/ CT program, I feel compelled to dispel the smokescreen of ambiguity that is being spread by those who should be held accountable for this debacle,” wrote Demeter.

This week, Dr. Dan Roberts, acting head of neurology at HSC, wrote an op-ed piece in the Free Press about how a bloated and dysfunctional bureaucracy is discouraging medical practitioners from working in Manitoba. He said in an interview the “endless buck-passing” in the system is causing inertia and is negatively affecting health-care services.

“It cannot be overstated how large a burden chronic pain weighs on these patients. It is significantly life impacting. To continue to delay access to some of the most reliable and successful procedures in all medicine is a failure of our health-care system to Manitobans.”–Orthopedic surgeons

Last month the Opposition tabled a letter in the legislature signed by 10 orthopedic surgeons at Grace Hospital who sounded the alarm over the facility’s inability to provide patients with a basic standard of care. The letter, which was sent to Health Minister Audrey Gordon in November, said chronic understaffing is causing delays for trauma patients and cancellations for non-urgent surgical patients.

“It cannot be overstated how large a burden chronic pain weighs on these patients,” the doctors wrote. “It is significantly life impacting. To continue to delay access to some of the most reliable and successful procedures in all medicine is a failure of our health-care system to Manitobans.”

In March, the Free Press obtained a letter written by 45 doctors from the Rady Faculty of Health Sciences internal medicine program pleading with government to hire an overnight hospital medical officer at Grace. Without after-hours coverage, patient care is “severely compromised,” the doctors wrote. Some physicians no longer feel comfortable working at the hospital because of a lack of patient safety, the letter said.

As an aside, it was only after that letter was shared with media that the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority (another layer of bureaucracy running health care) agreed to fund the position at the hospital. You can see why doctors feel the need to go public. Apparently it’s the only way they (sometimes) get results.

The government’s reaction to the doctor backlash has ranged from defensive to dismissive.

The government’s reaction to the doctor backlash has ranged from defensive to dismissive.

When the letter from orthopedic surgeons at Grace Hospital was made public last month, Gordon’s first instinct was to question its authenticity, even though the correspondence was sent to her office.

When confronted with the physicians’ concerns, Premier Heather Stefanson has simply repeated, like a robot, that her government’s health reforms are working and that patients are getting the care they need.

If that were so, it’s unlikely this many doctors would put their professional lives on the line by going public. It’s something they should not have to do.

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.