‘Long time in the making’: first phase of new emergency department finally opens at St. Boniface Hospital

The first phase of St. Boniface Hospital’s new emergency department opened Thursday amid rising wait times and public health officials’ assurances that the expanded site will have enough staff.

The full department will be triple in size — with aims of improving patient care and working conditions, and reducing wait times — when the projected is completed in 2026.

“It’s been a long time in the making,” hospital president and chief executive officer Nicole Aminot said of Thursday’s opening. “I started at the hospital in 2008, and we’ve been talking about needing a new ED since at least then.”

The first phase was slated for completion in mid-September, but was postponed to Thursday. The old emergency department will now undergo renovations.

Aminot said the overall project is on budget — approximately $141 million — and its timeline hasn’t changed. The St. Boniface Hospital Foundation gave $10 million.

Construction officially began in April 2022 on one of the largest projects in the hospital’s 154 years.

Officials said the new department will be inclusive and barrier-free. Private exam rooms in treatment areas, a dedicated mental health treatment area, an expanded waiting room and triage area, and natural light are among the features.

The emergency department now has its own diagnostic imaging suite, with a new CT scanner and X-ray machine.

“If you’ve been brought in and you’re in a (resuscitation) room, right outside those doors now you can get a CT — not having to go up to the second floor to where diagnostic imaging is,” Aminot said.

Amid chronic shortages across Manitoba and patient numbers expected to rise, Aminot said the expanded department will have enough staff.

“If in fact, the vacancy rate for ED nurses has dropped – helping to support the new capacity – then the department will be successful.”

The vacancy rate for the hospital’s emergency room nurses dropped from 24.3 per cent to 7.3 per cent from August 2024 to August 2025, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority said.

Aminot said the latest rate she saw was about six per cent, which was an all-time low. Eight more nurses were hired on top of vacancies being filled, she said.

Aminot believes a new emergency department will help to recruit staff.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said the opening is a positive step forward.

“If in fact, the vacancy rate for ED nurses has dropped — helping to support the new capacity — then the department will be successful,” Jackson said in a statement. “However, while staffing is improving, we must ensure departments are built to meet both patient demand and the needs of nurses.”

The NDP government is looking at legislating nurse-to-patient ratios. Jackson urged the province to prioritize the initiative.

Aminot said St. Boniface Hospital’s chief medical officer, Dr. Kristjan Thompson, who is an emergency room physician, has told her the department does not have a recruitment problem for doctors.

Doctors Manitoba, which represents more than 4,000 physicians and medical learners, said the new space will help to provide more appropriate, private and dignified care to patients.

“New modern space can also help with recruiting additional doctors and staff,” a spokesperson wrote in an email to the Free Press.

“We hope to see the province continue increasing its investment in recruiting more doctors and nurses in the ER, hospital and broader health care system, as that foundational investment will result in better access and shorter wait times for patients.”

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, agreed modern spaces can help to improve patient flow and reduce wait times, alongside appropriate staffing levels.

The union represents more than 7,000 allied health professionals, including diagnostic technologists who will work in the expanded ER.

“To have facilities that are conducive to providing excellent patient care, you need the space to do that,” said Linklater, who recently raised concerns about an increase in median wait times for CT scans at St. Boniface Hospital. “The situation in Manitoba right now, though, is that there aren’t enough staff, and that’s across the continuum in allied health and, certainly, other medical professions.”

St. Boniface Hospital had the longest wait time of any emergency department in the city on Thursday morning, per the WRHA’s online dashboard.

Shortly before 9:30 a.m. — about an hour after the new department opened — the wait time was 12 hours (the time between being registered and seeing a physician, physician assistant or nurse practitioner), with 40 patients waiting for an initial assessment and 52 having had one.

The wait time was 12.25 hours as of about 3:30 p.m., with similar patient numbers. Health Sciences Centre’s adult emergency department had the same wait at that time.

St. Boniface Hospital’s ER recorded 39,405 visits in the 2023-24 fiscal year. The expanded ER is expected to accommodate 55,000 annual visits after completion.

WRHA data showed the department had a median wait time of 4.92 hours in August, up from 4.57 hours in August 2024.

Measures proposed by a provincial team are being implemented at St. Boniface Hospital and other facilities in a bid to reduce blockages and improve wait times.

“This is a beautiful new facility, and it’s only as good as the investment in staffing and operating funding.”

St. Boniface Hospital’s expansion was announced by the former Progressive Conservative government, which converted ERs at Concordia, Victoria and Seven Oaks hospitals to urgent care centres.

“This is a beautiful new facility, and it’s only as good as the investment in staffing and operating funding,” PC health critic Kathleen Cook said. “For it to operate at its full capacity, for it to make a dent in wait times and improve health care for Manitobans, we need to see a corresponding investment in staffing.”

The province has added 350 employees across multiple departments at St. Boniface Hospital since the NDP was elected in October 2023, a government spokesperson said.

The NDP government is moving ahead with plans to open a new emergency department at Victoria Hospital.

chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca