The Tories took the NDP to task for announcing the reopening of the Carberry emergency room amid much fanfare Friday, only to have it scheduled to close for five days this month.
“How often can the community expect week-long closures?” Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook asked Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara during question period Tuesday.
The health minister didn’t answer the question, but said the NDP government has worked with the community, which is 150 kilometres west of Winnipeg, to find doctors and reopen the ER while the PCs allowed it to close under their watch last September.
The Prairie Mountain Health ER schedule for the region shows Carberry’s emergency will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. this week.
The online calendar shows it will close from 6 a.m. Monday, May 27 up to and including Friday, May 31.
“I think the health minister and the premier owe it to the people of Carberry to be up front in terms of what they can expect,” Cook said in an interview.
“It’s not clear if these will be rotating, ongoing closures or if this is a one-time event — if the people of Carberry should expect more of this,” said the MLA for Roblin.
Cook said the scheduled closures weren’t noted in the government news release or at Friday’s news conference with Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead and members of the local health action committee.
“There was no mention of week-long closures in the near future,” Cook said Tuesday.
Kinew said at Friday’s news conference that the Carberry ER schedule will be “comparable to what was here before” without going into any detail.
In advance of the media event, a Brandon Sun story that was also published in the May 10 edition of the Free Press, noted the five-day closure.
Carberry’s ER schedule for August 2023 — the month before it closed — showed two five-day stretches where it was shut down.
“The thing we’re happy with and the community is happy with is getting the ER open and we can go from there,” Carberry’s mayor said Tuesday.
“We knew it wasn’t going to be 24 hours, seven days a week. We have to adhere to the schedule of the doctors,” said Muirhead.
Three family physicians from Brandon and Virden were hired to work on a rotating basis at the hospital, in the ER and to also provide care to residents in the community’s 36-bed long-term care facility.
“I call this Phase One — if we can get the ER open and get a commitment from the region and from the province then at least we’re onto something,” the mayor said. “Then we work to Phase Two and Three: more consistent service and, ultimately, permanent full time doctors on staff.” For now, they’re on the right track with the ER, the mayor said.
“Hopefully, we can have a fairly consistent opening but there might be some (closures) here and there — but I think we realized that going in.”
carol.sanders@freepress.mb.ca
Carol Sanders
Legislature reporter
After 20 years of reporting on the growing diversity of people calling Manitoba home, Carol moved to the legislature bureau in early 2020.