Residents of a town in western Manitoba are bracing for the closure of their emergency department, which they fear could be permanent, beginning this fall.

The emergency room at the Carberry Plains Health Centre will have no physician coverage as of September, when the current doctor’s contract concludes.

“We are trying our best to recruit a new doctor and keep what we’ve got,” Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead said Wednesday.

The hospital had employed two physicians and a nurse practitioner, but one of the doctors retired around January. With only a nurse practitioner on staff, the centre could be reduced to urgent care status, Muirhead said.

On-call physician support from the nearby Glenboro Health Centre will not be available also owing to physician shortages, the town council said. About 4,200 people live in Carberry and the surrounding municipality of North Cypress-Langford.

Town officials have been negotiating with Prairie Mountain Health for more support and they’ve asked the province for funding to maintain the facility and its diagnostic equipment, Muirhead said.

“We are not asking for any special favours over and above any other community. We just want to keep what we’ve got,” Muirhead said.

A community health care committee was struck to help recruit a new doctor; 12,000 flyers were sent to Manitoba residents.

On Tuesday in question period, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew asked the Progressive Conservative government whether Carberry would lose its emergency department.

“The people of Carberry are very concerned because all throughout their region they’re seeing closures and now Prairie Mountain Health has come to town and told them that their ER may be next, come September,” Kinew said.

Premier Heather Stefanson responded by saying her government is spending a record amount on health care in the 2023-25 budget. She accused the New Democrats of closing over a dozen rural emergency rooms when they were in government between 1999 and 2016.

“Right now, we are faced with significant health human resource challenges, not just here in Manitoba, but right across our country,” Stefanson said, pointing to her government’s health human resources action plan.

Muirhead agreed communities across Canada are short-staffed, but maintained the issue is “front and centre” in Carberry, owing to the community’s aging population.

“We’ve got a lot of seniors in this town. If they go to the hospital in town for treatments or tests, its pretty easy. I can’t imagine them having to navigate a bigger centre like Winnipeg or Brandon.”

On Wednesday, Prairie Mountain Health said it is recruiting a physician in anticipation of the doctor leaving the emergency department at Carberry Plains Health Centre.

“Prairie Mountain Health continues active recruitment to meet our staffing needs, including recruitment for physician and nursing vacancies,” the authority said in a statement.

Health Minister Audrey Gordon said her government will not permanently close any rural emergency departments.

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“I sit at the table of solutions with stakeholders. Solutions on how we can properly staff our rural emergency departments, how we can properly provide services to Manitobans… and we take those solutions and we move forward as a government,” Gordon said Tuesday. “I am focused on keeping our emergency departments open.”

Kinew said the assurances ring hollow amid repeated, temporary closures.

“Once the PC government cuts a health care service, we don’t see it come back,” Kinew said. “For a community that’s losing an emergency department, the impact is immediate. So, that’s why we’re fighting to prevent this closure from happening.”

— with files from Tyler Searle

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca

Danielle Da Silva
Reporter

Danielle Da Silva is a general assignment reporter.

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