We'll staff up health care, and re-open emergency rooms, starting with the Victoria ER.

We can’t make health care better in Manitoba without working with the frontlines. That's why we're proud to that our plan for better health care endorsed by doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners, paramedics, homecare workers and other health specialists. We will work with them to improve health care for every Manitoban.

A Manitoba NDP government will:

• Invest in staffing recruitment and retention, and respect health care workers:

  • Launch the biggest health recruitment campaign in Manitoba's history
  • Hire back the 300 nurses Heather Stefanson cut
  • Hit Doctors Manitoba's target of hiring 400 more physicians in five years
  • Hire 200 more paramedics 
  • Open 5 new Neighbourhood Illness and Injury Clinics 
  • Open and staff five new primary care team clinics with family-friendly hours to help address the family doctor shortage and provide team-based care for Manitoba families.
  • Expand the Bannatyne campus to train more doctors and nurses
  • Introduce rapid accreditation for Internationally Educated Nurses and cut red tape
  • Take care of the health care workers that care for us 
  • End mandatory overtime for nurses to improve their work/life balance.
  • Work toward safer nurse/patient ratios 
  • Invest in continuing education for nurse practitioners 
  • Train more rural nurses by creating a pathway for LPNs to become RNs in their community
  • Offer targeted incentives to allied health professionals to work in rural and Northern communities, including more diagnostic imaging and lab technologists.
  • Put more allied health professionals in communities with Neighbourhood Illness and Injury Clinics where patients can access diagnostic testing
  • Include allied health professionals like social workers, occupational therapists, mental health clinicians and pharmacists in Primary Care Teams within family medical centres to offer wraparound supports with extended family-friendly hours

• Build new Emergency Rooms and increase hospital capacity 

  • Build 3 new ERs in Winnipeg starting at Victoria then Concordia and Seven Oaks Hospitals
  • Build 1 new rural ER in Eriksdale
  • Increase surgical capacity at the Concordia hospital
  • Create a new centre of excellence for cardiac care at St. Boniface Hospital
  • Build a new cancer care headquarters at HSC to bring the best cancer care and research together and provide world class care to Manitobans
  • Add 12 step-down beds at the Grace Hospital to reduce ER wait times
  • Expand surgical capacity at Grace Hospital by adding five elective orthopaedic surgery beds, two surgical slates and restoring the physiotherapy department to its full capacity
  • Add 60 new beds at HSC, 30 new beds at St. Boniface Hospital, 34 new beds at Grace Hospital, and 10 new beds at the Brandon Regional Health Centre

• Take care of Manitoba's Seniors:

  • Establish a legislated, independent Seniors' Advocate 
  • Increase homecare hours for seniors, hire more homecare workers, and reimburse them fairly for mileage
  • Restore dignity to seniors care with more hours of care for seniors in Personal Care Homes

• Take care of Manitoba's Families and Children:

  • Increase team-based care
  • Address the family doctor shortage
  • Reduce child and infant mortality
  • Increase the Healthy Child Prenatal benefit
  • Protect reproductive rights and improve access to abortion services 
  • Make prescription birth control free for all Manitobans.
  • Provide better health care for women as they age by reopening the Mature Women’s Centre and expanding coverage for more menopause drugs.
  • Develop a new provincial strategy to ensure that sexual assault nurse examiners (SANE) are available 24/7 in urban, rural and northern Manitoba, including hiring 7 FTE nursing positions

• Modernize Health Care:

  • Modernize health records so medial records are consistent, protected and accessible for care providers and for you, the patient.

  • Work toward the elimination of paper cards and fax machines in health care while improving the patient experience in the process.

• Invest in Northern health care:

  • Reverse the PC cuts to Northern patient transportation
  • Hire more staff to keep Northern health centres and ERs open and offer competitive incentives to work in Northern communities
  • Introduce financial incentives to bring more doctors to Northern communities
  • Invest in health technology to connect families with the best specialists.
  • Restore birthing services to Northern Manitoba, including in Pimicikamak Cree Nation and Norway House, so that families have culturally appropriate care in their home communities surrounded by friends and family
  • Support recruitment efforts for the new nursing station in Pimicikamak Cree Nation and work with the community to add dialysis care for diabetes patients.
  • Add an MRI machine to the Thompson Hospital to increase diagnostic services in the North.
  • Support funding for road improvements for PR 280 to benefit Tataskweyak Cree Nation, PR 374 to benefit Pimicikamak Cree Nation and PR 391 to benefit Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation.
  • Improve safety on Highway 6 with more rest stops.

• Bring more doctors, nurses and health care workers to rural communities:

  • More doctors in rural communities by reversing the PCs cut and then doubling the rural doctor recruitment fund
    
  • Shorter wait times for ambulances by hiring more paramedics and better cell service.
  • More staff to keep rural health centres open.
  • Health technology to connect families with the best specialists.
  • More PCH beds in rural Manitoba 

• Increase access to mental health supports

  • Hire 100 mental health workers to respond to non-violent mental health calls
  • Increase team-based primary care to have mental health professionals work alongside your family doctor and other care providers
  • Connect people experiencing homelessness to mental health supports