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Is the government going to make adjustments to shorten the progressively longer wait times in Winnipeg's Emergency Rooms?

On Thursday March 17, I asked the Minister of Health to tell us the adjustments which are being made to shorten the lengthening wait times in Winnipeg’s hospital Emergency Rooms.

Increase in ER Wait Times - Request for Reduction Plan

Hon. Jon Gerrard (River Heights): Mr. Deputy Speaker, on October 2017, the Conservatives began imple­men­ting hospital transformation to reduce pa­tient wait times. Then the longest wait most patients could expect at the Health Sciences Centre emergency room was 3.6 hours.

      The plan was to dramatically reduce wait times, but instead it dramatically lengthened them. By January last year, 2021, the wait time had increased to 6.4 hours and this January to 9.5 hours. Similar increases have occurred at Grace and St. Boniface emergency rooms.

      Wait times are going in the wrong direction.

      What adjustments are the gov­ern­ment making to address the dismal failure of its efforts during the last five years?

Hon. Audrey Gordon (Minister of Health): Deputy Speaker, NDP, members opposite: staffing shortages and the highest wait times in the country is the reason why our gov­ern­ment undertook system- health-care transformation.

      The member for River Heights is forgetting that we have just gone through, as a province, a very dif­ficult time, two years of a pandemic. He's forgotten that. Maybe that's a good thing.  Mr. Deputy Speaker, Manitobans can recover from the pandemic. We will do it in a com­pas­sion­ate and under­standing way. We will lead the province into a brighter and more prosperous future, and I invite the member from River Heights to join us in that future.

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