Manitoba continues to see long hospital wait times
Posted December 30, 2025 4:38 pm.
Last Updated December 30, 2025 8:53 pm.
Long wait times in hospitals continue to plague Manitobans, including at St. Boniface Hospital, where some in the ER say they’ve been waiting over 12 hours for care.
“Came in on a med-evac and landed here about 6 a.m. and did get seen in a couple of times, but it was 6 o’clock at night before I got into a room, and then just got released now,” said one hospital patient.
“There was one woman beside me, though, her pulse was down to like 22 or 23, I don’t know how much longer she had to wait after I got brought in.”
According to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority website, on Tuesday morning, Grace Hospital emergency room wait time reached over 13 hours, Health Sciences wait time reached 14.5 hours, and St. Boniface Hospital wait times reached over 10 hours.
“This government did promise when they came in that they would manage wait times, but we are not seeing that happen,” said Darlene Jackson, the president of the Manitoba Nurses Union.
Jackson says that staffing is not the only problem facing the healthcare system.
“The problem, it’s not just nurse – patient ratios. It is to do with the fact that we have patients that are waiting in acute beds for home care, and there’s not enough staff at home care to move those patients out to get service. We have patience, waiting in acute beds for long-term care beds. Our wage is getting longer for long-term care so? It’s a huge issue of how do we deal with it? What do we deal with first to actually deal with wait times?” asked Jackson.
Jackson says in some cases, more experienced nurses are either leaving their facility to go somewhere that is a bit more controlled, or leaving the profession altogether due to what they describe to her as harsh working conditions.
“I think it’s really morally distressing for nurses to know that we are educated and we provide holistic care to our patients, however, when you’re unable to do that, you know that it has a direct impact on patient care, on the patient safety and that is really a big issue for nurses so we continue to sit to see nurses exiting the system because of the working conditions,” said Jackson.
