Federal ask for COVID-19 help in Manitoba an extension: province

The federal government has extended the stay of nurses in Manitoba helping hospitals handle the COVID-19 pandemic.

On Tuesday, Bill Blair, Minister of Emergency Preparedness, tweeted that Manitoba had requested federal assistance for its health-care system.

The province and the Canadian Red Cross have since clarified that the request was to extend the stay of a trio of nurses already in the province helping out.

In a phone call with CTV News, Jason Small, the senior communications manager for the Canadian Red Cross for Manitoba and Nunavut said a handful of Red Cross nurses from across the country have been deployed at Health Sciences Centre Winnipeg since the end of December.

At the most, there were eight nurses; the number is down to three. Small explained essentially the contract for the remaining three nurses has been extended another two weeks until March 15th.

Small clarified that more nurses are not being deployed to Manitoba.

“This is simply a request for continued support of human health resources (nurses) to augment Manitoba’s COVID-19 response,” reads a statement from a provincial spokesperson.

The statement went on to say that while Manitoba’s COVID-19 case counts and hospitalization numbers continue to trend downwards, intensive care units and acute care centres continue to be a few weeks behind those trends.

“We appreciate the assistance from the federal government as we continue to add capacity in our health system to ensure Manitobans get the care they need, for COVID and other medical matters.”