‘This was a mistake’: missing wait-list stats restored to Manitoba Health website

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This article was published 01/12/2023 (678 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Wait-list statistics scrubbed from a Manitoba Health website not long after the NDP government announced Nov. 17 it was disbanding the surgical and diagnostic recovery task force have reappeared.

Premier Wab Kinew, who vowed during the lead-up to the October election to fix health care and be transparent with Manitobans, told the legislative assembly the data had been reposted for public view.

“This was a mistake and for it, I sincerely apologize without reservation,” he said Friday in response to a question by Opposition health critic Kathleen Cook (Roblin), who asked what the NDP government was “trying to hide.”

Kinew told the house the data on wait times for procedures such as hip and knee and cataract surgery and diagnostics tests (including MRIs, CT scans and ultrasounds) “should never have been taken offline.”

The date was restored Friday morning.

“Manitobans deserve to have timely and accurate information about the diagnostic and surgical wait times in our province,” Kinew said. “Our government is committed to ensuring that there is transparency for Manitobans.

“We look forward to ensuring that this information continues to be provided to the people of Manitoba, so that we can be held accountable to to deliver on our No. 1 commitment: fixing health care.”

On Thursday, Free Press columnist Tom Brodbeck reported a spokesperson for Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the information was removed because it “was not very user friendly.”

“Yesterday, a spokesperson for the minister was saying that it was taken down intentionally,” Cook said Friday. “Today in the house, the premier told us that it was a mistake and it was never supposed to have happened. It can’t be both.

“What it tells me as an Opposition health critic is that we’re going to have to pay very close attention going forward to what the government decides to do in terms of transparency and accountability.”

In an interview Friday, the health minister said the wait-list data being cleared from the website was a “misstep” that occurred as the diagnostic and surgical recovery task force was being wound down.

“We’re still getting more details on where the misstep happened,” said the MLA for Union Station, who couldn’t say when the wait-time stats were taken down or who is responsible.

“I don’t really want to go down the road of pointing fingers,” Asagwara said. “I’m glad that it was brought to our attention, so it could be brought back.”

— with files from Danielle Da Silva

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca