RCMP used a snowmobile sled to rescue a senior who was in medical distress at a remote cabin near Suwannee Lake.

Leaf Rapids RCMP were contacted at about 6:15 p.m. Tuesday. They were told a friend of the 85-year-old man had driven away from the cabin on snowmobile and was waiting to take officers to the remote location.

RCMP officers and a medical crew met the friend about 40 km south of Leaf Rapids and then travelled by snowmobile to the cabin, about approximately 6.5 km away.

The man was transported back to the road and then taken to hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The provincial government has announced an additional $7.5 million for Winnipeg road reconstruction, rehabilitation and preservation projects.

Municipal Relations Minister Andrew Smith said the funding is in addition to previously increased operating and capital funding provided through the Strategic Municipal Investment Fund.

The Manitoba Liberal Party hosts its annual general meeting Saturday in Winnipeg.

The day-long event at the Best Western Airport Hotel runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. includes association meetings, a speech by Liberal leader and St. Boniface MLA Dougald Lamont, and a panel discussions on  health, policy, and Indigenous rights.

Panelists include Dr. Barry Lavallee, chief executive officer of Keewatinohk Inniniw Minoayawin and Karen Velthuys, executive director of the Learning Disabilities Association of Manitoba.

Firefighters extinguished a blaze in a commercial building on Sutherland Avenue on Thursday night.

Crews were sent to the building in the first 100 block of Sutherland at 7:42 p.m.

Firefighters attacked the fire from outside because the structural instability of the building made it unsafe to enter. The fire was declared under control at 8:27 p.m., the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service said in a news release Thursday night.

The cause of the fire is under investigation. No damage estimates are available.

The ongoing influx of seriously ill children in hospital has resulted in 10 staff being reassigned to help out with intensive care patients at Health Sciences Centre children's hospital, Shared Health stated Thursday.

The 10 staff members, including nurses from pediatric surgical and recovery units, are temporarily working in the pediatric intensive care unit, and Shared Health is warning the public that some non-urgent, non-life-threatening children's procedures will have to be postponed. Families of affected patients will be contacted, Shared Health stated.

The protocol for temporarily reducing pediatric surgical slates at HSC was introduced in mid-December in response to a confluence of respiratory virus infections that were spiking demand for emergency and intensive care at the children's hospital.

Patient volumes had been stable, but they've increased since the beginning of March. There were 47 children in the ER with flu-like symptoms on Wednesday, compared with a low of 22 on March 18, Shared Health stated. As of Thursday morning, there were 17 patients in the pediatric ICU, which has a baseline capacity of nine beds.

Median wait times were nearly three hours for emergency and urgent care at Winnipeg hospitals in February.

On Thursday,  Shared Health and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority reported released figures showing that overall median wait times are slightly longer, but 90th percentile wait times are improving. The median wait (which represents the mid-point, meaning half of patients waited longer and half were seen sooner) was 2.77 hours in February, an increase of approximately three minutes from the previous month at city hospitals overall. Ninetieth percentile wait times improved by 21 minutes month-over-month to 7.17 hours.

Fewer patients left without being seen in February, and wait times decreased slightly for admitted patients who needed a hospital bed. Shared Health released the following statistics Thursday:

• Patient volumes increased in February to a daily average of 750, up from 730.4 in January;

• The median length of stay for patients in emergency or urgent care who were awaiting admission to an inpatient unit was 21.77 hours, an improvement from 22.5 hours in January; and

• The overall left without being seen (LWBS) rate in February was 12.1 per cent, an improvement from 13 per cent the previous month. The LWBS rate at HSC Winnipeg’s adult ED improved to 23.4 per cent in February, from 25 per cent in January.