‘Take it to the bank’: premier insists temporary ER will open in Dauphin by Labour Day, but nurses skeptical

Premier Wab Kinew insisted Tuesday that the flood-shuttered Dauphin hospital will have a temporary emergency department in place by Labour Day, but offered no details on the plan.

“I’m here telling you, take it to the bank — Labour Day — emergency department services in Dauphin,” the premier said when asked about it at an unrelated news conference in Winnipeg.

The Dauphin Regional Health Centre was forced to evacuate 54 patients and close its doors on July 1 after the Parkland region experienced severe flooding.

“You’re going to see temporary structures being stood up there over the next few weeks with an opening day of Labour Day because we know how important health care is to people in Dauphin.”

After heavy rains swamped the region and flooded the hospital basement, which housed vital mechanical and electrical systems, the Prairie Mountain Health regional health authority reported that the extensive repairs required to reopen the hospital could take nine to 12 months to complete. The premier, at the time, called that “unacceptable.”

On Monday, Kinew took many by surprise — including Dauphin hospital nurses and the city’s mayor — with a social media post vowing an ER would open by Labour Day on Sept. 7 .

“It’ll be a temporary facility for now as the hospital is repaired, but it will be the high quality you expect,” the premier posted on X.

The Dauphin nurses have since raised many questions, said Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson.

“The first thing I heard from them is, ‘How can this happen?’” she said Tuesday. They’ve asked where patients who need to be admitted will find a bed and how they will be transported with ambulance service limited in rural Manitoba. They’re also asking about diagnostics and lab services and “other basic essentials” required for an emergency department to serve patients.

“Nurses from Dauphin are saying this is never going to happen — that it is way too short a time to get it done. But time will tell. We’ll see how quickly they can get things done,” Jackson said.

When asked for details Tuesday, Kinew said he’s following doctors’ orders.

“The physicians gave us their list of what this facility has to have, and now we’re doing the important work of standing that up for Labour Day,” he told reporters.

Prairie Mountain Health was asked for comment, but the health authority deferred to the premier.

Kinew said the decision to open a temporary ER was made on Friday when it was clear there was no way the hospital’s ER could reopen by Labour Day.

“Last Friday, I did a walk-through of the facility,” he said. “All the mechanical, all the steam that heats the water that heats the facility that is going to make it a habitable space — pretty much all of it is completely trashed. It’s not recoverable,” the premier said.

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Prior to the site visit, the government was pursuing two options, he said.

“One track was we are going to move heaven and earth to get back in the original facility by Labour Day or to have a modular temporary facility open by Labour Day,” he said. “Going through on Friday, it’s like there’s no way we’re getting back into the original building within a few weeks, so we’ve got to do the temporary option.”

Kinew said a lot of restoration work has been done inside the hospital but he couldn’t say when it’s expected to reopen.

Emergency services have been available in Ste. Rose and Grandview; both communities are approximately 30 minutes away from Dauphin. Maternity patients have been directed to Brandon (about 165 kilometres away) and Neepawa (about 140 kilometres away).

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.