Health care again under microscope as Tories begin second term By: Tom Brodbeck Posted: 7:00 PM CDT Monday, Sep. 30, 2019

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/09/2019 (1870 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Health care and Manitoba’s methamphetamine crisis will likely dominate the agenda, as MLAs get back to work this week.

The Progressive Conservatives return to power with a solid majority, winning 36 of 57 seats in the Sept. 10 provincial election, and a vote of confidence by the public on their plans to balance the books, lower taxes and reform health care.

But that good will won’t last long if the public doesn’t start to see improvements in a number of areas.

Voters appear willing to give the Pallister government the benefit of the doubt when it comes to health-care reform, but they’ll soon want to see some tangible evidence Manitoba is headed in the right direction.

The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority is now 2 1/2 years into a plan that has seen six acute care hospital emergency departments consolidated down to three (with three community hospitals offering non-emergency services).

The plan has been marred by serious planning and execution problems that left some hospitals short-staffed and unable to provide acceptable levels of service.

The promise of lower wait times has still not materialized.

Emergency room wait times haven’t changed much over the past five years, even after the WRHA converted three city ERs into urgent care centres. The latest data show median ER wait times in August at 1.86 hours, slightly higher than they were at 1.52 in August 2018.

ER wait times at St. Boniface Hospital are particularly bad, having increased to 2.48 hours, up from 1.93 a year earlier. But, overall, ER wait times continue to hover at, or just below, the two-hour mark — as they have for several years.

Wait times for bone density tests are up slightly over the past year; wait times for MRIs are down one week; CT scan waits are up slightly; and wait times for myocardial perfusion studies have soared to more than 15 weeks (from six) the past year.

Median wait times for hip and knee surgery have fallen to 25 from 30 weeks over the past year. But cataract surgery wait times have grown to 30 weeks, from 25, during the same period.

It’s a mixed bag — and the Tories will be under the gun over the next year to start showing improvements in the system.

They will also have to tackle the meth crisis, which is driving up violent crime rates in the province, in a far more significant way than they did pre-election.

The Tories made a number of promises on addictions during the campaign, including the creation of a new acute medical sobering unit, new recovery and drop-in centre, and enhanced mobile services. They will be under pressure to move quickly on those campaign promises over the next several months.

The outcome of the K-12 school review commission will also be a significant file for the Pallister government.

The commission is expected to release its report in March; it will likely be some time before government provides a response, which could include the amalgamation of school divisions.

That would set the table for the early stages of the Pallister government’s plan to phase out school property taxes. But that’s still a few years away. The Tories pledged during the election campaign to begin phasing out the tax after they balance the budget, expected in 2022.

In the short term, it’s going to be all about health care.

Pressure will be on government to start showing its plan is working. The public has given the Tories some leeway, but its patience will run out fast without results.

tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca

Tom Brodbeck
Columnist

Tom has been covering Manitoba politics since the early 1990s and joined the Winnipeg Free Press news team in 2019.

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