Province adds insult to injury by celebrating ‘success,’ while wait times worsen

There’s an old line in politics: if you have good news, put it in a news release. If you have bad news, bury it.

That’s basically what the Manitoba NDP government did Wednesday when it issued a triumphant news release boasting that the province performed a record number of hip and knee surgeries in 2025 and credited investments in operating-room time and staffing for the increase.

“This is what rebuilding health care looks like,” Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara declared, pointing to 7,056 joint-replacement procedures completed across Manitoba last year, the “highest annual total on record.”

It’s an impressive sounding number, and it makes for a tidy headline. More surgeries, fewer people waiting in pain, patients getting back to their lives.

Except there’s one problem: Manitobans actually waited longer for surgery last year than they did the year before.

The government didn’t mention that part — not in the news release, not in the quotes, not in the celebratory tone. Nor did they mention that emergency-room and urgent-care wait times hit a record high in December.

According to Manitoba’s online diagnostic and surgical wait list portal, median wait times for both hip and knee replacement surgery increased in 2025.

For hip replacement surgery, the median wait time was 26 weeks in 2025. That’s the highest since at least 2019.

For knee replacement surgery, the median wait time was 29 weeks, up from 27 weeks in 2024 and the second highest since 2019.

If you’re going to declare “rebuilding health care” is working, you should probably make sure Manitobans can see the rebuild in the one place that matters most: the time they spend waiting for care.

Yes, Manitoba performed more hip and knee procedures in total last year. But the data in the release includes all hip and knee surgeries, including revisions, where worn or failed components from a previous joint replacement are replaced.

That matters because revisions are not the same as primary replacements. They often involve different complexity, different timelines and different patient needs.

When you isolate the number Manitobans actually care about — the number of hip replacement surgeries completed (excluding revisions) — the story gets less flattering.

In 2025, Manitoba completed 2,316 hip replacements, down from 2,516 the previous year.

In other words, for hip replacements, Manitoba didn’t just fail to keep up with demand, it went backwards.

The province does deserve credit for knee replacements. Manitoba completed a record 4,149 knee replacement surgeries in 2025. That’s real progress.

It reflects expanded operating time, more staff and better throughput. It also reflects the government’s push to move more procedures into outpatient settings, with nearly 70 per cent of joint replacements now performed without an in-patient hospital stay.

That’s a sensible reform. Outpatient procedures can reduce pressure on hospital beds and improve patient flow, as long as it’s done safely and patients have adequate supports at home.

The Selkirk Regional Health Centre surgical expansion also appears to be working, with 591 joint replacement surgeries completed as of December and the program on track to deliver 800 procedures by the end of the fiscal year. That’s good news — and it should be celebrated.

Still, Manitobans are waiting longer for surgery.

If the median wait time for a hip replacement is 26 weeks, that means half of patients are waiting longer than that and half are waiting less. It’s the midpoint.

And when you’re talking about joint replacement surgery, the people on the wrong side of that median can be waiting a year, two years, or more.

That’s not just inconvenient, it’s life-altering.

If Manitoba is performing “record” volumes but wait times are still rising, there are only a few possible explanations, none of them particularly comforting.

Either the backlog is so massive that record volumes still aren’t enough, or demand is rising faster than capacity, or both.

And while the government wants Manitobans to believe the health-care system is turning the corner, other indicators suggest pressure is still intensifying, including in ERs and urgent-care centres.

According to data released Thursday by the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, the median ER and urgent-care wait times at Winnipeg hospitals hit a new high in December at 4.1 hours, beating the previous record of 4.02 hours in September.

You wouldn’t know that from Wednesday’s release.

The government’s statement reads like a victory lap. It includes patient testimonials. It includes proud declarations about “rebuilding.” It includes claims about “staying focused on getting results.”

But it omits the one result that matters most to patients: how long they wait.

Manitobans aren’t asking for miracles. They’re asking for honesty. If the government wants to tout record surgical numbers, fine. But it should also disclose plainly that wait times are still going the wrong way and explain why.

Otherwise, this starts to look less like transparency and more like spin.

In a health-care system where people are already waiting too long, the last thing Manitobans need is a government that thinks clever messaging is the same as good care.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca