NDP would extend hours at Fort Garry health centre

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This article was published 18/08/2019 (2214 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Patients would have more access to Access centres under an NDP government, leader Wab Kinew said Sunday.

Kinew, standing near the Access Fort Garry centre, said it is never open on Sundays, but if elected, his government would open it that day as a pilot project.

“If you need a health-care appointment in south Winnipeg on the weekend, you will have it,” he said.

“We believe that being able to schedule things like checkups or vaccinations for your kids on Sundays will make life less stressful for some families.”

Kinew said the clinic would be staffed on Sundays with at least one doctor, two nurses, a nurse practitioner, two primary-care assistants and a mental-health counsellor.

He said Sunday openings, which would cost $300,000 annually, would be paid for by eliminating the Health Transformation Management Office, which was created by the Tories.

As well, Kinew said the clinic would also have the same staffing level on Saturdays as Sundays. He said currently, Saturday staffing is covered by trimming Monday to Friday resources to be able to open six days.

“We will cover Monday to Friday with full staff, thus repairing Pallister cuts.”

Kinew said if the Sunday pilot project is successful, the NDP would open all Access centres on Saturdays and Sundays for walk-ins and appointments.

The Tories released a statement after the NDP announcement, slamming the promise to cut the transformation management office.

In addressing the promise to open the Access Fort Garry centre on Sundays, the governing party said the Access Centre at the Grace Hospital is open Sundays. It did not clarify that the centre is open to walk-in patients only and not for appointments.

The PCs said the NDP would “take patient care back to the dark days of the last NDP government.”

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It said the PC party is improving patient care by modernizing the health system and the management office is integral to that process.

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said he doesn’t know if the NDP are promising anything about health care except “to return the system back to the way things were without actually fixing the problem.”

“It’s just piecemeal, little changes,” he said. “We’re talking about bigger changes to the health-care system in order to do things like end the rationing of care, to make sure people can get the care they need close to home, and another is life-saving drugs. To make sure people don’t have to pay for cancer, diabetes, HIV or cystic fibrosis drugs, which they did under both the NDP and the PCs.

“I think we’ve gone much further than both the NDP and the PCs with many of these plans because, frankly, they’re both parties of the status quo.”

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca

Kevin Rollason
Reporter

Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.

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