A new four-bed epilepsy monitoring unit in Winnipeg will help people with the condition get better treatment, the province says.

The unit began opening in phases at Health Sciences Centre in January, replacing a two-bed unit that closed in late 2019 because of staffing shortages and equipment failure, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said at a news conference on Tuesday, where they called the update a "game changer" for epilepsy patients.

"What we are specifically celebrating today is a development at HSC that will allow us to provide a level of care to epilepsy and neurosurgery patients that is orders of magnitude greater than what we have ever been able to provide before," said Dr. Manon Pelletier, the hospital's chief medical officer.

Pelletier said the unit is expected to be fully operational over the next several months, and is anticipated to help reduce the need for emergency room visits, MRIs and other interventions for people with epilepsy.

The government provided $2.3 million in capital funding for the new unit, and will spend an extra $2.5 million annually for operating costs, the province said in a news release.

While most people with epilepsy can manage their symptoms with medication, when long-term drug therapy isn't effective, patients get referred to an epilepsy monitoring unit to figure out why they aren't responding to medication and if surgery would be a better option, the province said.

The monitoring the new unit offers will allow more people with epilepsy to get a better understanding of how changes in their brain's electrical activity relate to their symptoms, the province said.

Asagawara said the unit also now has a dedicated nursing team and is admitting between 10 and 12 patients every month, with room to grow.

An adjacent neurological recovery unit has also recently opened at the Winnipeg hospital, the province said.

The Health Sciences Centre Foundation also spent $500,000 on a new four-bed unit between the new epilepsy monitoring unit and the neurosurgery unit that opened in December, which is an expansion to an existing step-down unit for neurosurgery patients and will increase capacity for epilepsy surgery patients, the province said.

That unit has been operating near 100 per cent capacity since it opened, Pelletier said.

While there is already a pediatric epilepsy surgical program with a monitoring unit in Manitoba, there's no adult program in place. The new epilepsy monitoring unit is considered an important step toward establishing that kind of full program, Asagawara said.

The monitoring program is expected to identify more and more candidates for epilepsy surgery, with the goal of recruiting more staff to support an adult surgical program, according to the province's news release.

There are roughly 23,000 people in Manitoba living with epilepsy or other seizure disorders, and as many as one in 10 will experience at least one epileptic seizure in their lifetime, Asagwara said.

Pelletier said roughly 7,000 people are expected to benefit from the new epilepsy monitoring unit in Manitoba.

Jason Linklater, president of the Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals, said the union is pleased to see the epilepsy monitoring program restored, "but what we know from the past is that it is going to require more staffing, and we do not have that."

Linklater said his concern largely involves electroencephalographic, or EEG, technologists — who he said are responsible for running the complex tests done at the epilepsy unit. There are currently only 20 EEG technologists in all of Manitoba, with another position sitting vacant and a retirement expected in the near future.

"There hasn't been any announcements related to additional staffing. And this is the whole problem with these units opening and closing, it's that they don't have adequate numbers of staff to do the work," Linklater said.

"It has been the historical way for governments to try and implement new programs using existing resources, and I think that's why you see the system in the state that you do now, because resources are not being allocated where they should be."

"It's creating a real problem with people getting burned out."

There are currently seven adult EEG technologists working at Health Sciences but 12 are needed, according to a text message from a Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals spokesperson, who added that the full compliment of staff may not be achieved at its current rate until 2026.

The spokesperson also said that more of the EEG technologists on staff are "working double the on-call hours" they were previously asked to.

Linklater said the problem with recruiting more EEG technologists to work in Manitoba is that the province pays about 25% less than other parts of Canada, and that there is no EEG training available in Manitoba — meaning if people already have to leave to get their education, there's no incentive to come back to somewhere with a lower salary.

The Progressive Conservatives issued a news release Tuesday to boast that it was their government that put the money toward expanding the epilepsy monitoring unit.