Interlake community fears health-care woes left ignored as election looms

Thelma Hogue thinks her husband might still be alive had the emergency room in their rural Manitoba community been open.

She and her husband Doug started the morning of Feb. 8, 2022, just like any other day — by drinking coffee and watching the news in their home in Eriksdale, around 140 kilometres north of Winnipeg in the Interlake.

Later, Doug said he was going to clear snow off the roof of their garage. After working for some time, he came back inside and sat down beside Hogue.

"I don't think I can do this anymore," Doug, 70, told her, she recalls.

He then stood up and walked out of the room. 

"I didn't even know what he was doing outside," Hogue said. "He never said he wasn't feeling well. He didn't say anything."

A few minutes later, her son found Doug lying unconscious on the garage floor.

That's when Hogue learned first-hand how troubled the province's health-care system is.

When the ambulance arrived, emergency responders told Hogue they were going to take Doug to the emergency room. But Eriksdale's ER in the E. M. Crowe Memorial Hospital was closed that day, and a doctor wasn't available.

After calling and finding out the ER was open at the Lakeshore General Hospital in Ashern, about 40 kilometres north of Eriksdale via Highway 6, paramedics decided to take him there.

"I'm positive if they could have got him to our ER here in Eriksdale, they could have maybe saved him," Hogue said.

"Seconds — not minutes, not 40 minutes or 35 minutes for travelling — count."

Hogue said the doctors in Ashern did everything they could, but her husband died of cardiac arrest.

"He was a special man and now he's gone. At least we have our memories, but I'd rather have him," she said.

With the emergency department in Eriksdale halting services on and off, Hogue worries another family might soon go through the same heartache.

"I don't want to see another family have to go through that," she said. "It's not easy losing a loved one."

'Still closed'

The closures are due to an ongoing doctor shortage, said Keith Lundale, who is part of a health-care advocacy group in the area.

"[Our ER is] still closed and it's sporadic," he said. "This has been problematic right through since January."

Eriksdale lost its lab technologist and two of its four doctors last year. It now has one full-time and one part-time doctor, who also serve Lake Manitoba First Nation and Ashern's ER, said Lundale.

But a spokesperson for the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, which is responsible for health-care delivery in the region, said there are no physician vacancies in Eriksdale.

LISTEN | Health-care advocate talks about ER closures in Dec. 16, 2022, interview:

"Recent physician scheduling in Eriksdale reflects physician illness and a physician choice to modify the schedule," the spokesperson said.

"Given the proximity of Ashern and Eriksdale, we work to keep one of these emergency departments open at any given time."

Eriksdale's ER is scheduled to be closed for 24 days in September, the online regional health authority schedule says.

The ER closed in September last year due to a vacancy in its diagnostics department. In November, it closed again because it didn't have a doctor available.

It also closed in December due to another diagnostics staff vacancy.

At a campaign announcement last month, Manitoba NDP Leader Wab Kinew said if elected, his party will build a new ER in Eriksdale, a $5-million project Hogue said she hopes comes to fruition. 

"It would be absolutely wonderful if he can do it, but … will he? Is the money going to be there for him to do it? I don't know," she said.

Lundale said the NDP is the only party to announce promises for the area.

In February 2022, Audrey Gordon, the provincial health minister, announced $11 million in funding to expand the Lakeshore General Hospital in Ashern. But that still leaves a gap in services for people who don't live close to Ashern, Lundale said.

"What happens to all the other people in these communities that rely on the services they have now?" he said. "That's the unfortunate part."

The Progressive Conservatives, who are seeking a third consecutive term in next month's election, have made other commitments to addressing health care, including $400 million to recruit, train and retain health-care workers, a spokesperson said in a email.

Plans to construct new hospitals in Portage la Prairie and Neepawa are underway, along with expansion projects at other rural health centres, the spokesperson said.

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Meanwhile, the Manitoba Liberals say they are "committed to addressing rural and northern shortages by investing in clinics with wraparound services … so that people can get local care quickly." 

That would include investments in physicians, nurse practitioners, and emergency medical technicians, Liberal Leader Dougald Lamont said in a statement.

The party has also proposed training new health-care professionals to practise in rural areas by creating a medicine program at Brandon University.

The provincial election is Oct. 3.