Carberry emergency department reopening

BRANDON — Carberry Health Centre’s emergency department will reopen today after being closed for eight months due to a lack of staff.

Premier Wab Kinew told the Brandon Sun Thursday that three doctors have been retained to staff the ER on a rotating basis in the town, which is just south of the Trans-Canada Highway, about 150 kilometres west of Winnipeg.

“Carberry’s emergency department is back open to meet the needs of the people in the community, the surrounding region, people who are travelling,” Kinew said.

The Carberry North Cypress-Langford health action committee, Prairie Mountain Health and the Manitoba government worked together to find the three doctors.

“We’ve seen tons of advocacy like the amount of work that the health action committee has put forward to get this thing moving ahead in terms of restaffing the health centre with physicians.”

The premier said he “cannot understate” the amount of outreach the community did and the creativity it showed to attract new doctors.

“I think their efforts are going to move the needle in terms of rural health care across the province.”

In September 2023, when the facility closed, the NDP said it couldn’t believe the community couldn’t keep its ER open.

That’s why, Kinew said, he personally delivered a letter to Carberry Mayor Ray Muirhead to promise to reopen the ER, during the fall election.

He called the move a “long-term solution” that has provided a learning experience to his government on the amount of effort it takes to find and recruit physicians.

“This really helped us understand better the amount of work that it’s going to take to properly staff up rural health care across the western region and really the whole province,” he said.

Challenges include fierce competition with other provinces for health workers and the difficult task of getting internationally trained doctors’ credentials recognized.

Beyond staffing the emergency department, Kinew said the physicians would also care for residents of the nursing home.

Other communities in the Prairie Mountain region such as Melita, Shoal Lake and Winnipegosis have been forced to do without emergency departments on a temporary basis for varying amounts of time.

Prairie Mountain Health’s online emergency department schedule for May shows Carberry opening from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day as of today. However, upcoming closures are listed for May 24 as well as May 28 to 31.

The Town of Carberry sent out a public notice through its social media pages and municipal website on Thursday saying that the premier, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara and other provincial representatives would be at the health centre today.

—Brandon Sun