NDP announces menopause clinic to open next year By: Carol Sanders Posted: 3:38 PM CDT Monday, Apr. 20, 2026 Last Modified: 8:17 AM CDT Tuesday, Apr. 21, 2026 Updates

The NDP government announced Monday it will make good on a 2023 election promise to resurrect a provincial menopause clinic by fall 2027 — around the time the next provincial election is due.

“Promise made, promise kept,” Premier Wab Kinew said at a news conference in a south Winnipeg business park where the Manitoba Menopause Clinic will be located. He said his government is re-establishing a one-stop shop for menopausal Manitobans after the former Tory government shuttered the Mature Women’s Centre at the Victoria Hospital in 2017.

“Manitoba once led the way when it came to delivering menopause services, and now we want to reclaim that spot,” Kinew said, noting the province is providing coverage for hormone replacement therapy to help with affordability, health and quality of life.

“Women deserve high-quality health care through every season of life,” Kinew said at the nearly 6,000-square foot warehouse-like space at 1333 Kenaston Blvd. where the province will spend $5.2 million to establish a clinic.

It will provide menopause and gynecological care, including minimally invasive procedures, along with counselling, education and co-ordinated interdisciplinary supports including physiotherapy and endocrinology.

Obstetricians and gynecologists will deliver care with a team that includes nurses, dietitians, physiotherapists and pharmacists five days a week. Specialty consultations will also be available in areas such as psychiatry, cardiology, endocrinology, rheumatology and sleep medicine. The clinic will also offer procedures such as hysteroscopies and endometrial ablation.

Kinew said those who chose the location “knocked it out out of the park” with the clinic located on a bus route and available parking.

“We’re establishing this here in southwest Winnipeg, but we know that we’re establishing this in a way that’s going to connect patients to providers all across this great province,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said.

“It means that people won’t have to search for care and go without it. The way a government talks about women’s health care, invests in women’s health care and strengthens women’s health care has a very real impact on citizens and communities across this great province.”

The provincial government says more than 55,000 women are saving money monthly through the Manitoba government’s free prescription birth control program and more than 36,000 women are receiving free hormone replacement therapy coverage.

A former patient at the Mature Women’s Centre 20 years ago hailed the province’s decision to revive one-stop services for menopausal women. That help was pivotal after her suffering for years had been dismissed as “normal.”

“The experts I met at the Mature Women’s Centre focused on me as a mature woman experiencing excessive bleeding and debilitating pain,” said Amanda Le Rougetel, 66. “They changed my life with their knowledge, their skills and their care. With today’s announcement, women in Manitoba can look forward to similar treatment.”

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook questioned how the province will be able to staff the menopause clinic when it’s had to delay the fall opening of a new hospital in Portage la Prairie until 2027 because of staffing concerns.

“It’s important that the NDP explain how they plan to fully staff this new centre and ensure it opens on time,” Cook (Roblin) said in an email.

“Without a plan to train, recruit, and retain the needed staff, there is a risk that this will become another empty political promise from the NDP.”

The menopause clinic will be a “hub with spokes” model to identify what patients needs are and meet their needs in a customized fashion, looking at all different health-care services available in Manitoba, said Dr. Vanessa Poliquin, the provincial specialty lead for women’s health.

“We’re going to make sure that we are their guide and their partner through this transition in life,” Poliquin said.

Advocacy organization Doctors Manitoba said in a prepared statement that menopause care is offered by many family physicians and ob-gyn specialists across the province, who performed more than 13,000 assessments during the last fiscal year.

“We look forward to learning more of the details about the new menopause clinic, and how it will complement the network of physicians already providing this essential care to women,” Doctors Manitoba said.

carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca

Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter

Carol Sanders is a reporter at the Free Press legislature bureau. The former general assignment reporter and copy editor joined the paper in 1997. Read more about Carol.

Every piece of reporting Carol produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.