NDP commits to reopening three Winnipeg ERs closed by Tories By: Danielle Da Silva Posted: 11:51 AM CDT Monday, Aug. 28, 2023 Last Modified: 6:20 PM CDT Monday, Aug. 28, 2023 Updates

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Manitoba’s New Democrats are promising to ease some of the strain on the health-care system by reopening three Winnipeg hospital ERs if the party is elected in October.

NDP Leader Wab Kinew was flanked by nearly two dozen candidates Monday morning outside St. Boniface Hospital, where he committed to build a new ER at Victoria Hospital and restore emergency services at Concordia and Seven Oaks hospitals over an eight-year period, spanning two terms in office.

The three emergency departments were closed and replaced with urgent-care centres by the former premier Brian Pallister as part of the Progressive Conservatives’ health system reorganization between 2017 and 2019.

“Closing the three emergency rooms in Winnipeg was the biggest mistake that (Premier) Heather Stefanson and the PCs made when it came to health care,” Kinew (Fort Rouge) told reporters.

Kinew promised a New Democratic government would first build a new ER at Victoria Hospital in southwest Winnipeg. The party is budgeting $150 million to build the facility and about $4.8 million to operate it each year.

Ground would be broken on the new ER only after the NDP hits its target of hiring 300 nurses to work in Winnipeg, he said. On Sunday, the NDP announced a $500 million, multi-pronged proposal to address the health staffing crisis, which included a commitment to hire the Winnipeg nurses within two years.

“Closing the three emergency rooms in Winnipeg was the biggest mistake that (Premier) Heather Stefanson and the PCs made when it came to health care.”–NDP leader Wab Kinew

Kinew argued the provincial government can afford to build new emergency departments based on increased transfer payments from the federal government. The ER at St. Boniface Hospital is currently undergoing a $141 million expansion.

Future infrastructure changes would be made to Concordia and Seven Oaks hospitals based on input from front-line health-care workers and as necessary staff are secured, Kinew said, adding each new ER would cost about $150 million.

“This is a common sense, smart and incremental program that we are committing to today,” he said.

Victoria Hospital is being prioritized for a new ER because of the growing population in southwest Winnipeg and the distance residents travel to access care, Kinew said. The hospital is within the Fort Richmond constituency, where Tory MLA Sarah Guillemard has decided not to seek re-election.

Anesthesiologist and St. Boniface Hospital physician Dr. Eric Jacobsohn endorsed the NDP proposal, saying the decision to reduce the number of ERs in Winnipeg was unwise.

“In the last seven years, I have witnessed an inexorable deterioration in access to medical care for Manitobans,” said Jacobsohn, standing alongside Kinew. “This has resulted in unconscionable delays in receiving care and poorer health-care outcomes for our friends and family.”

Dr. Brian Postl, former dean of medicine and health sciences at the University of Manitoba and former Winnipeg Regional Health Authority chief executive officer, also offered his support for the plan, which he described as an aspirational effort.

Postl would not speculate on the right number of ERs for Winnipeg, saying the calculation is a complex one that does not have an easy answer.

“We know we’ve got hospitals that have served with emergency departments and during those periods provided good sets of services,” he said. “And although there may be issues around patient volumes, I think as our population increases — frankly including in those particular areas of the city — the access through emergency rooms will be seen as helpful.”

Progressive Conservative party spokesman and McPhillips MLA Shannon Martin called the NDP campaign promise “simply unbelievable.”

“Just a few months ago, Wab Kinew said he wouldn’t open any Winnipeg ERs,” Martin said in a statement, citing a news article by The Canadian Press from December 2022. “Remember that (former NDP premier) Greg Selinger permanently closed 16 rural ERs. Desperate empty promises show that Wab Kinew is just not ready for government.

“The NDP’s wobbly canoe is close to tipping,” Martin said, turning Kinew’s name into a pun.

Martin also highlighted comments made by Postl to the CBC in 2017 in which the doctor said closing some emergency rooms was a logical step.

“I did think that there were parts of the evolution of the system that were worth observing,” Postl countered Monday. “But we’re now six years into it and they haven’t fulfilled what was promised.”

“Desperate empty promises show that Wab Kinew is just not ready for government.”–McPhillips MLA Shannon Martin

Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said the NDP’s attention on emergency departments is misdirected.

“All the NDP is really offering is a return to what was already not working,” he said, adding better access to community clinics, primary care physicians, more long-term care beds and an emphasis on preventative medicine is needed.

“We need to be focused on reducing emergencies and the best way to do that is to have more family doctors,” he said.

On Monday, the NDP also committed to opening an emergency department in Eriksdale and restoring the cardiac care program at St. Boniface.

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca