Manitoba Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said his party will reverse the Pallister government’s spending cuts and reopen ERs at Concordia and Victoria. The plan to close Seven Oaks ER would also be halted to ensure all Manitobans can get better care close to home.
Lamont said a Manitoba Liberal Government will immediately start to reverse the damage inflicted by the Pallister government by lifting the three-year Pallister funding freeze in health care and move aggressively to fill vacancies created by the PCs cuts. The Pallister government has kept health care spending frozen at the same rate for three years, despite Federal funding increases, inflation, and a growing and aging population.
Lamont said Liberals will listen to the frontline experts and doctors who have been telling the PCs they are on the wrong track, and work to reverse the damage caused by the PCs.
“We will respect and listen to the people who are delivering health care in Manitoba. We will work with them to rebuild confidence in the health system that has been lost under the NDP and the PCs,” said Lamont. “We need to listen and respect the voices of medical experts, and people working in the system who know there is a better way to deliver care.”
Lamont said that the Pallister government is turning a deaf ear to patient safety, despite repeated warnings from nurses, doctors, and unions. Doctors at Concordia warned that they need an ER to support their hip and knee replacement surgeries. Nurses at Seven Oaks warned they need an ER to support kidney therapy. At St Boniface Hospital, NICU nurses and an ER doctor have warned that PC changes were dangerous.
“We have heard from so many people working in the system that it needed changing, but by blindly following an NDP plan to close ERs, Pallister has made everything worse,” said Lamont. “The next election is an opportunity to stop the bleeding and reverse course, because, under Pallister, it will never get better.”
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