Shovels will hit the ground next year to build Winnipeg’s newest emergency room, Manitoba’s premier announced. At a news conference held Friday in front of the Victoria Hospital, Premier Wab Kinew said a contract to build the new emergency room at the city’s south end hospital will be awarded this month with construction officially beginning in March 2026. “This is a fast-growing part of our province, and it deserves to have its own emergency room,” Kinew told reporters. Public consultation with hospital staff and residents helped inform the design, the province said. The new ER will replace the existing urgent care centre, the province said, adding additional inpatient beds, diagnostic capacity, and a high-observation unit for acute care – not an intensive care unit. Still, it will offer one nurse for one patient, Kinew said, with diagnostics and medical equipment at the patient’s bedside. “It resembles the ICU in any way that you or I would notice, were we to walk into this unit,” he said. “The difference is that when you get to the level of specialists in the medical profession, anesthesiologists and the other folks who run an ICU – they’re going to make a distinction based on the volume that an ICU sees versus what we’re talking about here.” The point for the average Manitoban, he added, is when they need emergency care, they will no longer have to drive across the city. Meanwhile, the province also announced it will restore the Mature Women’s Centre, which is set to open alongside the new ER. As far as cost, the province allotted $3.5 million in its 2025 budget to pay for consultation, design and the first phase of construction for the ER and reopening the Mature Women’s Centre. A provincial government press secretary told CTV News they do not have an updated budget for either project at this point. ‘There’s lots of vacant shifts’ Reopening ERs at Victoria, Seven Oaks, and Concordia hospitals was an election promise when Kinew formed government in 2023. All three were converted to urgent care centres between 2017 and 2019 as part of a massive overhaul of the health-care system under the Brian Pallister-led Tories. Kinew said they waited to reopen the ER until they had the health-care workers to staff it. “That’s been our focus these first two years in government,” he said. During that time, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said over 3,400 net new health-care workers have been added in the province, including over 1,100 nurses, 285 new doctors and more than 1,600 health-care aides. Fifty-seven of those are working at Victoria Hospital. Despite the numbers, Manitoba Nurses Union President Darlene Jackson questions how the department is going to be staffed. “We still have a lot of nurses who are saying they’re working overtime,” she said. “There’s lots of vacant shifts. They’re still working with really heavy workloads. It worries me they’re as confident as they are.” Asagwara acknowledged more work is needed to reform Manitoba’s health-care system. “Patients are still waiting too long. Staff are still stretched on the front-lines, but each and every new hire, each and every new front-line health-care professional, each new bed is another step towards safer staffing and better care for all.” - With files from CTV’s Jeff Keele and Danton Unger
