We continue to monitor coverage in Manitoba’s ERs and Urgent Care Centres very closely, as some larger hospitals in the province are struggling with many unfilled physician shifts. 

Rural and Northern

Last month, we released our annual summer forecast for rural and northern ERs, which continues to see more ERs suffering from reduced hours, periodic closures, or full suspensions of service. In fact, we are seeing more facilities struggling than just a couple of years ago. In the North, several facilities continue to navigate wildfire disruptions. 

This year, we also assessed ER physicians’ practice intentions and found nearly a third (30%) indicating they are considering reducing their hours or resigning their ER duties completely if conditions don’t change. However, if changes are adopted that respond to their concerns, that decreases to 5% and nearly half (47%) of physicians are open to increasing their hours in ER. 

Three of the largest rural hospitals – in Brandon, Boundary Trails, and Steinbach – have many shifts that are down to single physician coverage this summer, perhaps more than ever. We are watching this closely, and offering advice to the health system on how to respond to physician concerns, improve retention and recruitment, and hopefully stabilize coverage. 

Additional details about the survey and ER operating forecasts can be found in this report. You can read more in this our story here. We encourage you to promote Rural​Care​.ca to your patients and community leaders for tips on how to plan ahead and links to access local ER schedules. 

Winnipeg Concerns

This is the first summer we’ve expanded our monitoring to include Winnipeg hospitals, based on concerns we are receiving from physicians. Some of the community hospitals are also struggling with unfilled physician shifts and long periods of single-physician coverage. An analysis just a few days ago found nearly 30% of physician shifts in one Winnipeg hospital were unfilled this week. This leads to distressing workloads and longer wait times that can easily snowball into care backing up even further as patients wait to be seen, then wait again for diagnostics or consults that aren’t always available. 

Escalating Physician Concerns

We have shared the feedback of rural, northern, and Winnipeg ER and Urgent Care physicians with RHA, Shared Health, and provincial health leaders, and held several meetings to press for more support and resources. 

Late last week, Shared Health sent a memo to all ER physicians in Manitoba, expressing ​“deep respect and gratitude for the extraordinary work you do in some of the most challenging clinical environments in the province” and recognizing how this is contributing to frustration and fatigue. 

The memo outlines some changes already underway to help ​“stabilize and strengthen staffing” including: 

• Exploring the addition of PAs, CAs, and/​or NPs to some facilities to add more capacity. 

• Streamlining tracking of hours and benefits to reduce admin burden. 

• Streamlining privileging to make it easier for physicians to fill open shifts. 

• Exploring improvements to scheduling systems to improve visibility of open shifts. 

Physicians are invited to share feedback including concerns and ideas with their medical leadership. We encourage you to copy Doctors Manitoba at practiceadvice@​doctorsmanitoba.​ca on any feedback you send to your hospital, RHA or Shared Health. If you aren’t comfortable sharing your concerns internally, you can share them with us in confidence. 

We continue to meet with senior health system leaders about these issues, and we anticipate meetings to happen soon at the Winnipeg and rural hospitals with the largest challenges.