Manitoba PCs earn a failing grade on health care, NDP says

The Manitoba NDP have proven to be harsh markers over the PC government's record on health care.

In a pre-election attack on the governing party, the Official Opposition pulled out the red pen at a Tuesday media event and gave the Tories a failing grade in 10 different health-care categories.

Health critic Uzoma Asagwara said the PCs have failed to accomplish various 2019 election promises, including the hiring of 200 more nurses, 80 more rural paramedics, improving wait times to reach the national standard and creating more personal care beds. 

"These were important key commitments and [Premier Heather] Stefanson's PCs have simply failed to get it done, and that is a broken promise," Asagwara said.

Freedom of information requests previously released by the NDP show the Winnipeg area lost around 180 nurses between 2019 and 2022.

Another document shows there are 87 fewer paramedics working in rural Manitoba as of February of this year, in comparison to the 2020-21 fiscal year.

The median wait time for emergency department and urgent care patients soared above three hours during some parts of the 2022-23 fiscal year — which is the longest wait seen in years.

NDP MLA Lisa Naylor said recent health-care promises from the Stefanson government don't rewrite the party's record on health care.

"Manitobans know that her promises today are just as empty as they were before and they know that the people who broke health care can't be trusted to fix it."

In a response statement, the government said the NDP is continuing to "fearmonger" and "perpetuate a false narrative" instead of detailing its own health-care plan. 

Tories defend health-care approach

The Tories are spending a record amount of nearly $8 billion on health care this year, which is nearly $2 billion higher than the previous NDP government, according to the PC statement.

Last week, the PCs also pledged a $1.5 billion rebuild of the Health Sciences Centre's adult bed towers and University of Manitoba Bannatyne campus, the statement added.

The government statement didn't answer why it failed to make progress on some health-care initiatives.

Asagwara said the pandemic shouldn't be used to excuse the government's performance since issues with Manitoba's health-care system were raised well before. For example, health-care unions and workers were slamming the consolidation of Winnipeg emergency departments into urgent care centres.

"This government started making decisions before the pandemic that have created chaos in our health-care system."

The report card released by the NDP also gave the government a failing grade on more vague Tory promises which are tougher to evaluate.

It also said a high number of cancelled home care visits and a decrease in the number of personal care home beds point to the Tories' failure to build safe places for seniors.

The NDP also accused the government of failing to provide increased supports to high-risk, sexually exploited girls, saying the sexual assault nurse examiners program — which isn't exclusively for at-risk girls, but for anyone who's been physically or sexually assaulted  — is in disarray.