News/Canada/Manitoba

Patients who identify as Indigenous, African or Black are generally spending longer in Winnipeg emergency department waiting rooms than white people, according to a new report examining how different racial groups experience patient care.The data also found Indigenous patients and white patients present with similar triage scores — a measure of how severe their medical issues are — which counters "the common stereotype of Indigenous people using the emergency departments inappropriately," says the report prepared by Dr. Marcia Anderson, who led the race, ethnicity and Indigenous identity data project team on behalf of Manitoba Shared Health.It also found patients who are African and/or Black wait the longest to be seen, on average, even though they're among the most likely to present with ...

A physician advocacy organization is underscoring the role Manitoba employers can play in freeing up physicians to spend more time on patient care and less on paperwork by no longer requiring their workers to get sick notes.Eliminating sick notes in cases of short-term illness would add an equivalent of 50 doctors — or 300,000 more patient appointments — to Manitoba's health-care system per year, Doctors Manitoba president Dr. Nichelle Desilets said during a news conference Tuesday."Every sick note takes time away from patients who need medical care," Desilets said. "That's concerning, because Manitoba currently has the second-worst doctor shortage in the country."More than 600,000 sick notes are requested annually in Manitoba — many of which aren't medically necessary — and they cost taxp...

Parents in Manitoba are growing more concerned as measles cases rise, and for the first time, officials have called what's happening in the province an outbreak.On Wednesday, the province announced 16 new cases of the highly contagious infection since last week, bringing the total for the year to 60 confirmed cases and four probable cases. Of those, 42 cases have been confirmed in May alone, according to provincial health data up to May 17."We are experiencing an outbreak," provincial medical officer of health Dr. Santina Lee said Wednesday."We are seeing higher cases than usual, and we are seeing some ongoing community transmission," meaning cases that didn't have any known contact to a case either during travel or in Manitoba.Most cases involve children who are unvaccinated, said Lee, wh...

Misinformation is making it hard for Canada to reach the vaccination levels needed to prevent the spread of measles, experts say as the country deals with the largest outbreak of the disease in almost three decades.Nationally, the country is dealing with the largest outbreak since the highly infectious disease was eradicated in 1998. Canada has recorded 1,593 confirmed and 253 probable cases this year, according to the federal government's latest monitoring report Friday — the vast majority of which are in Ontario.Dr. Peter Hotez, an American virologist who was co-nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for his work developing a low-cost, patent-free COVID-19 vaccine, said the current wave of measles cases in North America highlights the importance of educating the public about vaccine safety....

Pharmacists in Manitoba will soon be able to prescribe birth control, the province's health minister revealed this week in an announcement that came as a pleasant surprise to the industry. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the legislature Wednesday that granting pharmacists the means to assess and prescribe contraceptives is a "very reasonable expansion of scope for pharmacists in Manitoba." The minister added in an interview the government is moving "very quickly" on the changes, which will take effect "in the coming days and weeks.""We're trying to get it out the door as quickly as we can for pharmacists across the province who have been asking for this for years," they said.Pharmacists will also be able to prescribe HIV medications beginning this summer, a government official said.Man...

A second family from Gaza has arrived in Manitoba to get "life-changing" medical care for their kindergarten-aged son they couldn't access at home, as part of what Premier Wab Kinew called a "humanitarian corridor" to the province opened in response to the effects of the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.Kinew said the young boy, along with his mother, grandmother and two younger siblings, arrived at Winnipeg's airport on an Air Canada flight on Friday."I think it says something very positive about us as Manitobans, that we're able to step up and do what we've done time and time again during our province's history, which is lend a hand when people are fleeing conflict or other challenges," Kinew told reporters at a news conference later that day.He would not provide details about the boy's medical ...

Federal party leaders and provincial governments are trying to make it easier for workers to seamlessly move between provinces as a response to U.S. tariffs, but some health-care leaders in Manitoba aren't enthusiastic."It just worries me that nurses are going to take this as an opportunity to strike out and look for greener pastures," Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said.There's renewed interest in eliminating interprovincial barriers that restrict workers' mobility, now seen as a way to bolster an economy hurting from U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs.Provincial governments in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island have introduced legislation or written letters to support worker movement. Jackson, however, worries about potential consequences. Sh...

An open letter from a group of Manitoba researchers has garnered support from hundreds of other scientists and academics across the country, sounding the alarm about the effects of research cuts in the U.S. on Canadian research and urging federal political leaders to take action.The letter, which was shared Friday and as of Tuesday afternoon had more than 750 signatures, said it comes "at a critical moment for global science.""The dramatic dismantling of research infrastructure in the United States, the world's historical leader in scientific investment, has left an international innovation vacuum," it says.Julie Lajoie, an assistant professor at the University of Manitoba and one of the academics who wrote the letter, said the current climate in the U.S. has created "a unique moment in ti...

Doctors and residents in northern and rural Manitoba say health care in their communities must be a federal election priority this year, as emergency rooms continue to close and patients travel farther and longer for care.The emergency room at Morris General Hospital, 60 kilometres south of Winnipeg, closed indefinitely in September 2023. It's one of several rural Manitoba ERs to shutter in recent years due to health-care worker shortages."You can go there with somebody half dying, and all it's got is a thing on the door: The emergency's closed," said Eileen Klassen, 78, who lives down the road from the hospital."It's not the doctors or the nurses. They work hard."Eileen Klassen, who lives in Morris south of Winnipeg, says the local hospital's emergency room closure in 2023 concerns her, e...

A Winnipeg-born gynecologist and bestselling author says she's had enough with the United States, but she's also prescribing a stark warning for Canadian voters concerned about the future of their own reproductive health care.Dr. Jen Gunter, whose books include The Vagina Bible and The Menopause Manifesto, has long been an outspoken women's health advocate, working to dispel myths around women's sexual health and bodies, and combat online misinformation.She's lived in the United States for three decades, but now says she's moving back to Canada.While that was always part of the plan, Gunter says her decision was sped up by U.S. President Donald Trump's return to the Oval Office earlier this year."The absolute just gutting of health care, you know — it's day after day [that] we're hearing a...