July 12, 2022

Treaty 1 and Dakota Territory, Homeland of the Red River Métis, Winnipeg MB – As Premier Stefanson meets with Premiers from across Canada to discuss health care funding, the Manitoba NDP is calling on the PCs to be accountable for their cuts to health care by providing Manitobans with regular health system updates. 

“Manitobans know our health care system is broken. Wait times in ERs are through the roof, people are waiting years for surgery, frontline health care staff are leaving the profession every day, and we continue to send patients hours away from their home communities for care,” said NDP Health Care Critic, Uzoma Asagwara. The PCs want to convince us this is normal but Manitobans won’t accept it. The PCs need to answer for the chaos they’ve caused and prove health care is a priority by holding weekly health care system updates to inform the public.” 

The NDP is calling on the PCs to provide weekly updates to the people of Manitoba, detailing their actions and measuring outcomes on the following: 

•  ER wait times 
•  Rural and Northern hospital closures 
• Nurse vacancy and overtime rates 
• Paramedic vacancy and overtime rates 

• The surgery and diagnostic backlog 
• The number of patients transported away from home community 
• Ambulance wait times 

“It will take years to fix the damage the PCs have done to health care,” said NDP Leader Wab Kinew. “But we can’t fix the chaos they’ve caused until we know the true cost of their cuts. We know Manitobans benefitted from regular COVID reporting – now it’s time to for the PCs to face up to the longstanding issues in our health care system that are forcing families to wait longer and travel farther for care. We’re committed to fixing health care and it starts here.”