New Premier Wab Kinew has condemned hundreds of Manitobans to
months of agony by imposing his hard-left policy on hip and knee surgery
patients, according to wait list data released last week.
The explosive details have not been reported anywhere
except for a single opinion piece in the Winnipeg Free Press, demonstrating how
far the mainstream media will go to protect the premier from criticism.
The data shows that in the first six months of the NDP in
power, there were 263 fewer hip-and-knee surgeries in Manitoba compared to the
last six months of the Conservative Party. And that's in addition to hundreds
of hip-and-knee surgeries that could have been done if the NDP hadn't banned
sending patients to private clinics in the U.S. or other provinces.
To make matters worse, the median wait time for surgery
in Manitoba jumped from six-and-a-half months to eight months. The government explains
that the median wait means that the half of patients on the wait list--those
who have already had their surgery--- waited less than 8 months, while those
still on the list will wait eight months or longer for surgery in Manitoba.
When challenged about the impact of the ban on
out-of-province surgeries, the NDP declared the program had been too expensive.
According to freedom-of-information published by the
Winnipeg Free Press in defence of the NDP, the
Manitoba government spent
- $18.8 million on 274 procedures in its first full year
of operation,
- $17.5 million on 492 procedures in eight months of its
second year (up to November, 2023 when the NDP kiboshed the program).
Kinew
can't exactly cry poverty for the cancellation.
In
his first budget he plans on spending $20 million dollars (that's MILLION) in
one year to dig a hole in a garbage dump. https://winnipegsun.com/news/local-news/ottawa-manitoba-commit-20m-each-to-landfill-search-for-remains-of-slain-women
And that's just for "initial
costs such as equipment and building a search facility. The actual Big Dig is
estimated to cost almost $200 million over three years!
When the out-of-province surgery program was ditched, NDP Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara was joyful at being able to stick it to private clinics and expand surgical capacity in Manitoba.
No reporter has asked her
about the disastrous effect of the ban on out-of-province procedures,
especially not NDP cheerleader Tom Brodbeck, the only one to write of the new
data.
Brodbeck managed to field a
31-paragraph opinion piece, but it wasn't until halfway through---paragraph 15---that
he asked the obvious about the NDP's failed left-wing policy...
"The only explanation for doing so is the Kinew
government is ideologically opposed to out-of-province surgeries...As
a result, it’s prepared to put its ideological beliefs ahead of patient care."
Duh, ya think, Tom?
"The Kinew government should
acknowledge that in its haste to dismantle the task force, it erred in
eliminating out-of-province surgeries. That option should be reinstated to
provide at least a small number of Manitobans with quicker access to surgery
and to help bring down wait times for those having their procedures done at
home.
That would be the right and humane thing to do."
When even your biggest cheerleaders
call your policies inhumane, you've got a problem.
Which brings us to Carberry, Manitoba.
This week with great hoopla Wab Kinew
announced the great news that he had fulfilled a campaign promise and personal
pledge to the mayor of Carberry to re-open the town's ER.
There was cheers, applause, grins all
around. The only things missing were fireworks, a parade and a statue of Kinew.
But, as they say, the devil is in the
details. So we took a deep dive into the details.
While some news stories gave the
impression that Carberry had hired three new doctors for its ER, the fact is
that three family doctors in
personal practice in Brandon and Virden will be working rotating shifts in the
ER, and caring for patients in the 36-bed long-term care facility.
One has a specialty in urology,
another obstetrics and the third is a GP. The ER will be open 12 hours a day,
from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. The newbies will work 2 week stints according to a post
by one of the doctors.
The arrangement is
temporary. Prairie Mountain CEO Treena Slate has said Carberry hopes to get a permanent
doctor by the fall.
Carberry town council at its April 9
meeting explained other plans for the ER.
"The next
step is to bring in an Internationally Educated Health Professional (IEHP)...to
serve as a clinical assistant to the E.R. doctors while he upgrades his qualifications
to Manitoba standards. In addition, PMH and Shared Health will be filling out
the support staff roles the presence of an E.R. requires."
Conspicuously missing from this
week's announcement was any mention of newly hired support staff, which begs
the obvious question about the jerry-rigged arrangement: is the Carberry ER
operating as a true ER? Or was it all an elaborate photo op for Wab Kinew?