New ER, Mature Women’s Centre at Victoria hospital to get top billing in NDP health-focused budget

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This article was published 01/04/2024 (525 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The NDP government’s first budget will include funding to revive the emergency department and Mature Women’s Centre at Victoria General Hospital, both of which were shuttered by the Tories in 2017.

NDP Finance Minister Adrien Sala will present Premier Wab Kinew’s spending and taxation priorities for the fiscal year on Tuesday afternoon.

The two capital projects at Victoria hospital will take years to complete, but the budget includes money to get them started, a government spokesperson said Monday without offering any details.

Promises to reopen both were among a litany of health-care pledges the NDP made during last summer’s provincial election campaign.

Sala is expected to walk a tightrope over gaping holes in health care and provincial services armed with $901 million less than expected in revenues from taxes and Crown corporations while facing a record $1.9-billion deficit and paying more than $2 billion to service Manitoba’s $33-billion debt.

On the bright side, the province is expecting $6.9 billion in federal equalization payments this fiscal year.

However, after nearly eight years of austerity measures imposed by the Progressive Conservatives, sectors starved for funding are hoping the NDP’s budget will put them on the road to recovery.

“We want them to make some solid steps forward in reversing austerity,” said Molly McCracken of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

“I expect government to prioritize health care as they did in the election.”

The Manitoba director of the left-leaning think tank said community development funding for programs that promote health and address the root causes of crime are pressing issues the NDP campaigned on.

The party’s promise to balance the budget during its first term in office isn’t doable, given the deep deficit the government finds itself looking into, she said.

“That’s simply not realistic, given their commitments and more pressing priorities they have,” she said.

At the other end of the political spectrum, there are calls for further belt-tightening to make good on the budget-balancing promise and to start chipping away at the forecast $33.5-billion debt.

“The government should look for savings,” said Gage Haubrich, Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The advocacy group’s truck, displaying a “debt clock,” was parked beside the Manitoba legislature ahead of Tuesday’s budget. It shows the provincial debt increasing to cost every Manitoban more than $23,000.

“This year, the government is going to waste $2.2 billion on interest payments on that provincial debt.”

The Finance Department’s third-quarter fiscal update showed debt servicing charges forecast at $2.17 billion, $19 million more than the previous Tory government had budgeted for.

In the last decade, Manitoba has posted just two balanced budgets, said Haubrich, who is based in Saskatoon.

“If governments had spent within their means, that money could’ve been used to hire 20,000 nurses or build a couple of hospitals,” he said. “Instead, it’s being used on nothing” but servicing the debt.”

If the province is looking to balance the books, it shouldn’t raise taxes for the wealthy — who will just move to a lower-tax province — or end the 14-cent-per-litre fuel tax holiday that’s making life more affordable for many Manitobans, he said.

The NDP has hinted at extending the gas-tax suspension beyond July 1. An update is expected in Tuesday’s budget.

The Canadian Press reported the NDP is looking at changes to income and property taxes to make them more progressive; those with higher incomes and more expensive homes would pay more.

The property tax changes would move from a combination of the new 50 per cent rebate and a long-standing $350 tax credit to a single, flat credit, the news agency reported, citing a government source.

Some homeowners would pay less, some would pay more. Overall, the province would take in more money, the source said.

The CBC, quoting an unnamed government spokesperson, reported last week the flat credit will be $1,500, effective in 2025.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority announced in 2017 that the ER at Victoria General Hospital would reopen as an urgent-care centre during the consolidation of emergency health services in the city under the direction of former PC premier Brian Pallister.

In addition to Victoria, the provincial government closed the ERs at Concordia and Seven Oaks hospitals, leaving the city with emergency medicine available at the Health Sciences Centre, and St. Boniface and Grace hospitals.

On the campaign trail before October’s provincial election, Kinew said taxpayers and “hard-working people” in south Winnipeg should have access to an emergency department at their community hospital.

Until 2017, the Mature Women’s Centre team at Victoria provided care including menopause transition, hysterectomy alternatives and other gynecological services. In addition to doctors and nurses, the team included a pharmacist, dietitian and kinesiologist.

The year before it closed, the centre reported 5,000 patient visits with what the WRHA called a “nurse-managed model of care” that “emphasizes health promotion and disease and disability prevention from a physical, cultural, emotional and spiritual perspective.”

— with files from The Canadian Press

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca