Misericordia, Grace injury and illness clinics delayed until next year, NDP says

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This article was published 28/11/2024 (391 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The opening of the Misericordia Health Centre and Grace Hospital minor injury and illness clinics — touted by the NDP government to open in the fall — have been pushed back to next year.

A statement from a spokesperson for health minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province is working to get the Misericordia clinic opened in the new year before focusing on the opening of the Grace clinic.

“We want to be sure that staffing and resources are available for each clinic and are moving through them to ensure clinics are operating effectively for patients,” the spokesperson said in an email.

The spokesperson did not provide a reason for the clinics’ delay. No timeline for the Grace Hospital clinic’s opening was provided.

On July 4, the province announced it would open the clinics within the former Misericordia Health Centre emergency room and the Grace Hospital emergency room. The former Progressive Conservative government shuttered the sites in 2017.

The clinics are to be open seven days a week, staffed by physicians and health-care professionals to provide non-emergency care and treatment for minor health concerns, the province said at the time.

Solicitations for proposals to operate and manage the clinics closed Aug. 28, according to the province’s online tendering portal. A review of online documents shows no one has yet to be awarded the contract to manage and operate the facilities.

The spokesperson said the province is in the “midst of finalizing negotiations with the successful proponent” for the Misericordia clinic and are unable to share their identity until an agreement is signed.

The Misericordia clinic is expected to be located in a space currently occupied by a casting facility. Renovations need to be done to accommodate both before the minor-injury clinic’s opening, the spokesperson said.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson is disappointed in the delay and called the urgent-care centre closures a “huge mistake.”

“When they announced the closure I knew this would impact other facilities in the immediate area. This delay worries me,” he said.

The closest alternative non-emergency centre to the Misericordia is the appointment-based Minor Illness & Injury Clinic on Corydon Avenue. The Grace Hospital opened an extended hours primary-care clinic within its health centre on Sept. 18.

Jackson said she was thrilled when the province announced it would be reopening the clinics, which are crucial to creating capacity within the health-care system and provide more employment opportunities.

“When workload is dealt with so it’s not as heavy… less mandated overtime… nurses stay in positions where there is less on their plate,” she said, adding the longer the delay, the more wait times go up.

According to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s dashboard, the average wait time at Winnipeg’s three urgent-care clinics — at Victoria, Seven Oaks and Concordia hospitals — Wednesday afternoon was 5.6 hours.

Tory health critic Kathleen Cook said without a comprehensive plan to recruit and retain staff, the clinics are meaningless.

“This looks to me to be a lack of a plan under the NDP,” Cook said. “Emergency-room wait times are going up, wait times for surgeries and diagnostic tests are going up. Things are moving in the wrong direction.”

On Wednesday morning, the province announced it would be creating capacity to perform 800 more hip and knee replacement surgeries in Selkirk each year.

Cook welcomed the announcement but said it has to be backed up with action.

“(The surgeries) are going to be contingent on the NDP making sure we’ve got appropriate staff. And I hope that they’re successful,” she said.

Jackson said if the province can stabilize the workforce and workload, which includes opening more primary-care facilities, health-care workers will be more likely to stay in the province.

Amanda Condon, a family doctor and Shared Health’s provincial specialty lead for family medicine, said she’d like to see the minor illness clinic model embraced within the health-care system to create capacity and relieve pressures on emergency rooms and urgent-care centres.

“We really do see these clinics as being part of (the) system,” she said.

nicole.buffie@freepress.mb.ca