Five training spots added for lab, X-Ray techs

The province is doubling the number of Manitoba students who can train as combined laboratory and X-ray technologists.

The province has secured five additional training seats at Saskatchewan Polytechnic beginning in January to help address diagnostic staffing shortages across rural and northern communities, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced Tuesday.

The cross-trained lab and X-ray techs play a central role in rural hospitals, providing essential lab testing, general radiography and electrocardiogram services.

The additional training seats will cost the province $178,270 for 2025-26. Shared Health will offer return-of-service agreements to Manitoba students accepted into the program, covering tuition and academic expenses in exchange for 5,000 hours — approximately three years of service in Manitoba after graduation, helping ensure rural and regional sites benefit directly from the investment.

The 10 seats serve as a bridge while Assiniboine College completes capital upgrades, equipment installation and regulatory approvals needed to launch Manitoba’s own 20-seat program in September 2027. Once operational, the provincial program will reduce reliance on out-of-province training.

“By working with advanced education and training, we’re actually doing the work by standing up this training in Manitoba, building our own capacity,” Asagwara said.

Nearly 20 per cent of lab and X-ray tech positions in the province are vacant, said the president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals. He welcomed the announcement.

“This will certainly benefit rural communities that depend on those services to keep rural ERs open,” Jason Linkater said. “It is the kind of initiative that we’ve been asking them to implement.”

Linklater said there are 1,000 vacant allied health positions in Manitoba.

“They should be doing the same type of thing on a much larger scale for respiratory therapy, MRI, paramedics, a lot of the underfilled educational programs.”

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca