Death of patient being treated for swollen hand sparks critical incident review Her daughter, a nurse, says 30-hour ordeal to get help shows system is broken By: Tyler Searle Posted: 3:35 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 Last Modified: 5:38 PM CST Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2025 Updates

The mother of a Winnipeg nurse has died after reportedly waiting more than 30 hours inside a city emergency room, sparking a critical incident review and a secondary investigation led by the health minister.

News of the death circulated widely on social media Wednesday, after the patient’s daughter published a post detailing her attempt to get care for her mother, whose condition deteriorated as she waited for hours on a stretcher in a hallway at Grace Hospital last weekend.

Premier Wab Kinew acknowledged the death during question period Wednesday.

“The details that we see in this post are very, very disturbing and are calling many, many things into question. As a matter of course, a critical incident has been launched,” he said in the legislature.

“There seems to have been some errors made in the care for this person, who we lost far too soon. But beyond that, it would seem that there are other issues at play — potentially systemic ones — and on account of that, our minister of health has committed to doing an additional investigation, beyond the (critical incident) report to get to the bottom of just what went wrong here.”

The Free Press has reached out to the woman’s daughter.

Her post says her mother went to the Minor Illness and Injury Clinic on Corydon Avenue on Nov. 16, where she was treated for a swollen wrist and hand. She went to the minor injury clinic at the Misericordia Health Centre four days later, after steroids she was given to treat the problem did not work.

Misericordia staff felt the woman needed further care, including intravenous antibiotics, and referred her to the Grace Hospital where she was admitted at about 7 p.m. that day, the post said.

The woman remained at Grace Hospital on a stretcher in the hallway until about 6 a.m. Saturday, when she was transferred to St. Boniface Hospital. By then, medical staff “were in life-saving mode and very little could be done,” the post said.

“She became confused. Not knowing why she was at the hospital. She was rediscovering her swollen hand every three minutes. She went from walking and taking and being able to give her medical history and details to weak and confused in less than 24 hours,” it said.

“The system is broken and so is my heart.”

The ordeal lasted more than 30 hours, during which the woman feared her mother was going septic and advocated for health-care staff to reassess her.

“I don’t blame the nurses; in fact, I feel for them,” the post said. “They are over stretched, stressed and given so little resources. My mom deserved better. We deserve better.”

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority confirmed the patient who died was Genevieve Price.

Further details about the situation, including the patient’s age and diagnosis, are being withheld due to privacy legislation, Kerstin Jordan, the health authority’s chief nursing officer, said in a statement.

“We have extended our deepest condolences to Ms. Price’s family and acknowledge the profound loss they are experiencing,” Jordan said.

“This is not a situation that any Manitoba family – any family – should ever experience.”

“Our patient safety team has begun a comprehensive review into the circumstances that led to the incident. Hospital leadership and our patient relations team will remain in touch with the family, and they will be invited to participate in the review and creation of improvement recommendations.”

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara confirmed the woman who made the post is a nurse, and said they spoke to each other “at length.”

“She very graciously and very generously had a conversation with me, not only about her family’s experience, but about her experience as a nurse in the health-care system,” Asagwara said.

“This situation is a tragedy. The family did everything that they could do to get their mother the care that she needed, when she needed it. This is not a situation that any Manitoba family — any family — should ever experience.”

Asagwara did not confirm any details surrounding the death, saying the critical incident review will provide more clarity on the situation.

The minister connected with people within the WRHA to discuss “some of the pressures that the Grace (Hospital) was experiencing on the weekend” but Asagwara did not say whether the facility was understaffed around the time of the death.

The secondary review spearheaded by the province will determine if and how systemic challenges such as patient flow, miscommunication or other factors contributed to the death, Asagwara said.

“We need to understand, not only what happened here in as much detail as possible, we need to understand how we can prevent this from happening again to any Manitoban,” the minister said.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said she, too, has been communicating with the grieving daughter.

“People are falling through the cracks because the cracks are that huge.”

 

“I haven’t talked to her in person, but we’ve been messaging back and forth…. She’s shocked, and she can’t believe this happened, ” Jackson said.

“This should never have happened. This was totally preventable had this been dealt with sooner, but the reality of our situation is people are falling through the cracks because the cracks are that huge.”

Jackson said the tragedy will send a chill throughout the province.

“Imagine how helpless (people) feel in this system? Even a nurse wasn’t able to navigate the system.”

Opposition Leader Obby Khan blamed the NDP government for the death.

“To the family, and all Manitobans watching, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that this premier and health minister didn’t do better by you,” he said.

Asagwara countered, saying the Tories made a “massive, massive mistake” by closing three Winnipeg emergency departments while they were in power, and Manitobans are still suffering as a result.

—With files from Carol Sanders

tyler.searle@freepress.mb.ca