The Manitoba government has recruited 13 U.S.-trained physicians to work across the province as of January 2026. Premier Wab Kinew and Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced the hires on Friday, saying they build on the increase of 285 doctors added to the province’s health-care system in 2025. The province said these physicians, along with its new online appointment booking system, will make it easier for Manitobans to access health-care providers. “At this time in the world, everybody sees what’s going on in the United States, and we’re very proud in Manitoba to accept people as they are, to celebrate inclusion and diversity and to keep our doors open to the world,” Kinew said at a news conference. “We’re also very proud as Canadians to have a free, universal, public health-care system.” The province said its health care retention and recruitment office continues its international recruitment efforts through licensing, immigration and community placement. In a statement, MLA and PC health critic Kathleen Cook said she welcomes the addition of any new health-care resources to Manitoba. She noted, however, that Kinew and Asagwara have been announcing the hiring of health-care workers for months but said there’s no improvement in frontline services. “In fact, many diagnostic and surgical wait times and ER wait times have only gotten worse in the more than two years the NDP have been in government,” the statement said. “Wab Kinew now says Manitoba has hired enough nurses, yet 50% of the nursing positions in the Dauphin and Swan River ERs were vacant just last week.” Cook noted the province needs to do a better job of retaining local graduates, saying the “Premier’s words are not matching his action on the delivery of front-line health care services that Manitoba families deserve.”
