Right in the centre - Falling short, hollow promises

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Published on Thursday, November 7, 2024

By Ken Waddell

Neepawa Banner & Press

It has been said that the best prediction of future actions can be seen in past actions.

When it comes to Manitoba health and the Prairie Mountain Health and Manitoba Health, it can easily be said that health care in Manitoba is fairly good but it certainly isn’t time sensitive except in cases of emergency. Obviously, traffic accidents get fairly immediate attention, heart attacks and serious illnesses rank fairly high on the care and attention scale. But when it comes to long term care, elective surgery, hip and knee replacements, both PMH and MH fall down the hill pretty badly.

There is great optimism around the new hospitals at Portage La Prairie  and Neepawa. But there are problems on the horizon for both facilities. Recently, we carried an article about the reluctance, no the refusal, by Manitoba Health to put an MRI into Portage hospital. Also recently, Neepawa found out that while there is space for a CT scanner at the new hospital they don’t plan to install one. Not enough need, not enough technicians and a lot of blah,blah,blah.

Manitoba Health needs to give their head a major shake. CT scans in Manitoba are behind by 35 weeks. Yes, you read that right, 35 weeks. If you want a CT scan, you can go to Alberta and buy one and get it in a week, if you go to North Dakota, it might be even sooner.Those stats scream loud and clear that Manitoba Heatlh is verging on insanity.

I got thinking about this CT scan delay and then I was reminded that Neepawa Hospital is supposed to have 75 beds, but at a public meeting it was stated that only 30 would be used initially. Isn’t that great news? Thirty beds is five less than we have now but there is a promise that 70 will be set up in the future.Thirty beds is less than we have now and Neepawa is expected to elevate its performance from a district hospital to a regional one.

I personally have a long history with PMH and Manitoba Health and their promises. In 1999, I was Mayor of Neepawa when a new care home was promised to replace the 120 bed East View Lodge. Instead we got 100 beds and somehow 100 beds is supposed to serve the area needs when Neepawa has grown from 3,200 people to 6,000. Makes good sense, right? I was personally promised that as soon as East View Lodge wheeled the last resident down the ramp, the Town would be handed the keys. The plan was for EVL to be turned into public housing. Manitoba Health piddled around and let the building slide into ruin until it was too late to renovate it. Now all Neepawa has is a bare lot where we once had a building that could have had 50 suites. A building by the way that the local residents and taxpayers paid for in the 1960s and 70s. Broken promises on the number of beds, the shrunk version of the care home don’t make me feel very good about the proposed 30 beds statement. 

It’s all about the money and political dogma. Manitoba has the idea that we are always short of money and God forbid that we allow any private investment or expenditure  invest in the public good. There are people in both Neepawa and Portage catchment areas who would be willing to invest in a CT scanner or an MRI. People are also willing to pay for part of medical care; it happens all the time for some services in Manitoba, but not others.

Without a major shake-up in health care, Manitoba will never catch up. We are short 345 doctors in Manitoba to reach the national average of doctors per 100,000 people. Without substantially increasing the number of graduating doctors we will always be behind. And I say Manitoba graduates as we should not be “stealing” doctors from other countries or other provinces.

I have been around long enough and around politicians long enough that I am sick of half-hearted promises. Lots of good things happening in health care but it’s simply not enough and “not enough” make no sense. We need more than empty promises.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this column are the writer’s personal views and are not to be taken as being the view of the newspaper staff.