Tories promise to tackle long wait times in Manitoba hospitals

Manitoba Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister repeated more of the same party platform points today he has in recent months about plans to reduce Manitoba's long wait times and high ambulance fees.

Pallister stepped to the podium Monday morning outside the Grace Hospital on Portage Avenue. He said "Hello" to the crowd and then stared down at his wrist watch, taking a long, curious, pregnant pause.

"That was 10 seconds," Pallister said. "Seemed a lot longer, didn't it? How'd you like to wait for six hours on average? Because that's the average wait time here, and that has to change."

Pallister echoed past statements about the Selinger-led government, saying Manitobans have lost trust in the NDP and want a change. He said the current government has repeatedly let Manitobans down in emergency rooms across the province.

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"Imagine waiting with someone who you love, who you care for deeply, who is in pain, who is frightened and imagine doing that for six hours," Pallister said. "Manitobans are not getting results when it comes to health care, they're not getting access."

Manitobans pay the most for ambulances and wait longer than any other province for emergency care and surgical procedures, he said.

RAW: Tories promise to tackle long wait times in Manitoba hospitals

9 years ago

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Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Pallister repeated some more of the same platform points he has in recent months about Manitoba's long wait times and high ambulance fees Monday in Winnipeg.

According to numbers released by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) in December, Concordia Hospital posted the longest emergency room wait times across the nation in 2014-15, with about 10 per cent of patients waiting more than seven hours before being assessed by a physician. The national average for the same period was 3.1 hours.

Out of the nearly 200 hospitals for which data were gathered, all of Winnipeg's six hospitals were ranked in the top 12 for longest wait times based on the 90th percentile.

• Winnipeg ER wait times worst in country again, report says

If elected, Pallister says the PCs would form a task force at an estimated cost of $700,000. It would spend six months focusing on shortening wait times and speeding up access to health care across the board.

Pallister also promised to invest more in frontline health care services and analyze which demographics are using emergency services in Manitoba.

"So many people are giving up in frustration in our emergency rooms," Pallister said. "The NDP's approach is to make promises, and they're good at that. They make a lot of them.... Our focus is on keeping promises."

'No meat on the bones'

Selinger responded, calling the PC's plan "vague" with "no meat on the bones."

The NDP's first campaign announcement was a commitment to double the amount of quick care clinics in Manitoba, he said. Selinger added the Manitoba government has also upped the amount of doctors and nurses under his watch and dramatically reduced so-called "hallway medicine."

In September, CIHI released a report charting a nation-high rate of doctors who left the province in search of work elsewhere in 2014. Two left the country while 47 physicians went looking for jobs in other provinces — the highest in the country that year.

• More doctors left Manitoba in 2014 than any other province: CIHI report

Manitoba was also one of the provinces with the highest number of international medical school graduates in the country, something CIHI senior analyst Walter Feeny said could explain the province's exodus rates.

The province disputed the report's numbers, instead pointing to figures from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Manitoba that show there was a net increase of 83 doctors in the province in 2014.

CIHI said its report excluded resident doctors still in medical training and semi-retired physicians, among others, which explains the discrepancy.

Selinger also touted the fact that Manitoba has fewer patients returning to emergency rooms for follow-up treatment than other provinces.

"The thing we have to remember when it comes to ER wait times is we have the lowest number of people returning," Selinger said. "Other systems churn people in and out but they return."

According to CIHI, 8.6 per cent of patients in Manitoba and Nova Scotia had to be readmitted at some point in 2014.

The provinces tied for second place in the country and were behind only Quebec (8.4 per cent) and Newfoundland and Labrador (8.4 per cent). The provinces with the lowest and highest readmission rates were separated by a narrow margin of just 1.5 per cent, with Nunavut coming in last place.

On Sunday afternoon, the NDP released a statement saying a Pallister-led government would focus on introducing austerity measures that would endanger essential health-care services Manitobans rely on.

"The last time Brian Pallister and the Conservatives were in power, they fired teachers and nurses, privatized MTS, closed overnight service at four community hospitals and shut down the Misericordia ER," Selinger said in a statement. "They've done it before and they'll do it again."