Peter Dueck, mayor of Arborg, Man., is pictured outside the town's hospital in March 2024. He's concerned about the prolonged closure of the community's emergency department.
Data on emergency department closures across Manitoba in 2023 obtained by CBC News paints a picture of a fragile rural health-care system in some areas that has residents worried about accessing care.Peter Dueck, mayor of Arborg, Man., is pictured outside the town's hospital. He's concerned about the prolonged closure of the community's emergency department. Every time Arborg Mayor Peter Dueck walks out his front door, he's reminded his community is missing a critical service.
Some closures were for a few hours, while others lasted weeks. Four ERs, including Arborg, closed their doors indefinitely last year. Emergency departments should be able to look after the initial stage of any acute injury or illness and be accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week, he said." you don't have the resources, human or otherwise, to deal with that stuff that's going to come in that's life-threatening or you don't have the 24/7 capacity, you're not really an emergency department.
Some residents wonder what will become of rural ERs, like Arborg's, that close frequently or indefinitely. "That's a good hour " she said. "If it was an emergent situation, it would take quite a while to get some kind of attention." But Mayor Dueck said wait times for ambulances are also a concern in Arborg, leaving many feeling their only choice is to drive themselves, or a loved one, to the nearest ER.
The hospital remains open for in-patient care, he said in an email. Hours at the primary care clinic have also been extended into some evenings and Saturday mornings, he said. "Sometimes they won't even bother stopping into their local emergency room because they're stressed, and they just go to the next one that they know is guaranteed to be open," she said."Once a hospital loses its acute care services and its emergency room, if that's been the case for a long time, it can be hard to re-establish that service," said Desilets.
Dr. Alecs Chochinov, an emergency physician and past president of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, is pictured outside St. Boniface Hospital, where he works. He argues patients would get better care through a system of more dependable emergency departments in larger centres, with well-trained paramedics who can transport people to those centres.
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