“When you need care in an emergency, you’re no longer going to have to drive by the Victoria [Hospital]. You can come here and you can expect that your stay will be here,” the premier said\u00a0at a Friday news conference, where he announced a\u00a0tender is set to be awarded next month for construction starting in March 2026.<\/p>\n
Once completed, the emergency department will have a high-observation unit, more in-patient beds and added diagnostic capacity, which the premier expects will help treat more patients at the hospital and offer care for higher-acuity cases.<\/p>\n
Victoria Hospital will continue providing health-care services during the construction, the province said.<\/p>\n
Kinew said the new ER will open to the public sometime in the first half of 2027, but didn’t commit to having it open\u00a0before Manitoba’s next general election, expected to be held that\u00a0year.\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/victoria-hospital-news-conference.jpeg\")
Premier Wab Kinew said Friday he expects the new emergency room will be open in the first half of 2027. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey\/CBC)<\/p>\n
Brenda Catchpole, Victoria Hospital’s interim chief operating officer, said offering emergency room services at the hospital\u00a0again will be\u00a0a dream come true.<\/p>\n
“We are currently up to our elbows in architectural drawings and draft budgets and equipment catalogs \u2026 to do the best job,” she said.<\/p>\n
One of the challenges facing the new ER is\u00a0having the right amount of\u00a0diagnostic services and ensuring easy access, said Catchpole.<\/p>\n
“Let me assure you that we’re going to make the most of this opportunity,” she said.<\/p>\n
Once the new ER is open, Victoria will phase out the\u00a0urgent care centre that has been operating since late 2017, when\u00a0three of Winnipeg’s six ERs were closed in a controversial bid to reduce wait times<\/a>.<\/p>\n ‘Much work left to do’: union<\/p>\n Kinew\u00a0also said Friday the province remains\u00a0committed\u00a0to reopening\u00a0Victoria’s mature women’s centre, which also closed down in 2017. Reopening that centre was another\u00a02023 NDP campaign promise<\/a>.<\/p>\n “We said during the campaign that we would open the Victoria [Hospital] ER when it was safe to do so,”\u00a0Kinew said Friday. “We had to hire more people to work at the bedside. That’s been our focus these first two years in government.”<\/p>\n Halfway through the NDP’s first term, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said the province has staffed roughly 3,400 net new positions in the health-care system, which includes\u00a01,100 nurses, 285 doctors and\u00a0401 allied health professionals.<\/p>\n
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Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara says the government has had a net gain of roughly 3,400 health-care workers since the NDP was elected in October 2023. (Prabhjot Singh Lotey\/CBC)<\/p>\n