‘Never seen it this bad’: Winnipeg family questions province’s healthcare boast amid hospital experience

Manitoba is boasting that it’s more prepared than it has been for a while to handle flu and cold season.

The province says it’s added 323 beds to the healthcare system in the past two years, including 10 new intensive care unit beds in 2025.

Those ICU beds were added at the Health Sciences Centre Children’s Hospital (six), St. Boniface Hospital (two) and Grace Hospital (two).

“Every single year we’ve worked very hard to get the system better prepared for flu season, for respiratory illness season,” said Uzoma Asagwara, the minister of health, seniors and long-term care.

But families waiting on loved ones at St. Boniface Hospital — the same hospital where the Manitoba NDP government made the announcement Monday — say they are not seeing these beds.

Richard Frechette says his 18-year-old daughter has been in constant pain with fainting episodes since the end of August. He says he’s had to bring her to the emergency room often, where wait times broke his heart.

“She was crying in pain, in pain, in pain,” Frechette recounted. “Four days before she got to see a doctor. Four days, we were waiting in the waiting area.

“I’ve never seen it this bad.”

Frechette says doctors found a tumour in his daughter’s liver and scheduled her surgery for September, which got pushed back to November.

“We said, we can’t go on this way. It’s crazy.”

The father says doctors also didn’t have time to sign his note from Service Canada after he took time away from work to care for his daughter.

“I need to get paid somehow,” Frechette told CityNews. “I’m with my daughter. They don’t have the time to talk to you or spend time to do anything inside the room.”

Menopause care is more widely available, but financially out of reach for many

TORONTO — Karine Beauchamp couldn’t think straight, felt so exhausted she could barely get out of bed and had unpredictable mood swings ranging from sadness to anger. “It’s like my resilience just…

Prescription painkillers shortage in Canada expected to continue into new year

Pharmacists say a shortage of medications that contain oxycodone is expected to continue into the new year, while supply of another type of painkiller has increased since a nationwide disruption in the…

‘Never seen it this bad’: Winnipeg family questions province’s healthcare boast amid hospital experience

Manitoba is boasting that it’s more prepared than it has been for a while to handle flu and cold season. The province says it’s added 323 beds to the healthcare system in the past two years, including…

Could psychedelic drugs be the future of medicine?

Alternative medicine is nothing new. Although it can be risky and sometimes harmful, people with chronic pain or debilitating health complications are usually open to seeing what other treatment options…

CityNews asked Minister Asagwara how they reconciled the new beds with the still-long wait times.

“I think it really does show Manitobans the magnitude of the damage done by the previous government,” they replied. “We lost over 500 beds from the system under the previous administration, hundreds of healthcare workers and our three largest emergency rooms in Winnipeg.”

The Progressive Conservatives responded by saying the governing NDP is simply not fulfilling its promise to Manitobans.

“You can say you hired doctors and you can say you hired nurses and you can say these things you’re doing, but talk is cheap,” PC Leader Obby Khan said. “Manitobans deserve and want and demand action.

“They ran on the platform that they had all the answers, that they were going to fix healthcare. Two years later, and everything is worse.”

The province is acknowledging there’s still more work to be done. Minister Asagwara says they’re aiming to add another 34 beds to the system by the end of December.