A year ago this week, Manitoba’s NDP won a provincial election on a pledge to “fix” health care.
So, how has Premier Wab Kinew and his party done so far in making good on that election promise, including bringing down wait times for surgical and other procedures and reducing emergency room overcrowding?
Not very well. But there are some promising signs.
Wab Kinew’s NDP government is making good on its promise to hire 1,000 net new health-care workers. The province announced recently that 873 net new front-line staff, including doctors and nurses, have been added to the workforce. (Mike Deal / Free Press files)
Health care was the main plank in the NDP’s election platform in the run-up to the Oct. 3, 2023 election.
The party made other pledges, such as temporarily cutting the gas tax, expanding meal programs in schools and making Orange Shirt Day a statutory holiday — all of which have been accomplished. But improving the province’s beleaguered health-care system was the overarching promise the NDP made to voters during the campaign.
There is no perfect way to measure progress in health care, but there are a few key metrics that can be used.
Emergency room wait times, which grew significantly under the previous Tory government, would be one of the most significant measurements. When the NDP won the election, the median wait times for ERs and urgent care centres in Winnipeg was 3.52 hours. According to the most recent available data for August, that number has come down slightly to 3.35 hours. However, it’s higher than the 3.12-hour median wait time for August 2023.
Still, after peaking at four hours in December 2023, ER wait times have been falling steadily.
Wait times for surgical procedures aren’t quite as rosy. The median wait time for hip replacement in June (the most recent available data) has soared to 38 weeks, the highest it’s been in at least five years. So far in 2024, the wait time for hip surgery is at 31 weeks, higher than any year since 2019.
There’s a huge caveat to that number, though.
Under a new surgical database system that began in Winnipeg earlier this year (which is now being rolled out provincewide), surgeons are forced to prioritize patients who have been waiting the longest for surgery. That is one of the main reasons wait times for hip operations, which are measured retroactively (it only includes patients that had their surgery the previous month, not those still waiting), have increased.
Once the new database is fully rolled out, wait times will be measured in real time (as opposed to retroactively), meaning patients waiting for procedures will have a much better idea of when they will get surgery. That is progress, but it will take time for the public to see it.
Wait times for knee replacement surgery are also far higher in 2024 than they were last year, but likely for the same reason as hip surgery.
Wait times for cataract surgery are lower this year than in any year going back to 2019 and wait times for cardiac surgery have been falling since 2022.
So it’s a mixed bag on surgical wait times.
Meanwhile, wait times for diagnostic testing are getting longer. The median wait time for an MRI in June was 22 weeks, up from 19 weeks for the same month in 2023 and 11 weeks in June 2022.
The median wait time for a CT scan was 10 weeks in June, up from seven weeks for the same month in 2023. So far this year, wait times for CT scans are higher than in 2023 and 2022.
Timely access to diagnostic testing is critical for patients since it’s often required for a diagnosis prior to receiving treatment, including surgery. Longer wait times for diagnostic scans is a major failure for the NDP in its first year in government.
At the same time, the Kinew government is making good on its promise to hire 1,000 net new health-care workers. The province announced recently that 873 net new front-line staff, including doctors and nurses, have been added to the workforce.
That will help hospitals open more staffed beds to increase capacity, which over time should help reduce hospital congestion and bring down ER wait times. But the province still has a long way to go to address the chronic shortages of health-care workers across Manitoba.
No one expected the new government to fix health care in a year. However, Manitobans likely did expect some progress in the short term. There has been modest improvements in some areas, but things have gotten worse in others.
Despite that, it appears Manitobans are willing to give the NDP more time to make good on their main election pledge. A recent Free Press-Probe Research poll shows the party is more popular today than a year ago.
But that may not last if the NDP is unable to make more meaningful progress on health care going forward.
tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca
Tom Brodbeck
Columnist
Tom Brodbeck is a columnist with the Free Press and has over 30 years experience in print media. He joined the Free Press in 2019. Born and raised in Montreal, Tom graduated from the University of Manitoba in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics and commerce. Read more about Tom.
Tom provides commentary and analysis on political and related issues at the municipal, provincial and federal level. His columns are built on research and coverage of local events. The Free Press’s editing team reviews Tom’s columns before they are posted online or published in print – part of the Free Press’s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
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