Health facilities to be built, upgraded in Portage and Brandon with Manitoba's clinical services expansion

Premier Brian Pallister announced some details Monday about how the Manitoba government plans to spend $812 million to build, expand and renovate health-care facilities across the province.

The money, previously announced in this year's provincial budget, will be divided among 38 projects Pallister says will reduce wait times, improve access and shorten distances people need to travel for care.

The funding will also provide the foundation of the provincial clinical network, which aims to provide a provincewide approach to decision-making and care delivery.

Approximately $70 million will be used to enhance health services in Brandon, making the Brandon Regional Health Centre a hub for services in southwestern Manitoba and expanding the Western Manitoba Cancer Centre.

The health centre will get approximately 30 new medicine beds, a new intensive care unit and a renovated and expanded neonatal intensive care unit.

The cancer centre will get a 7,000-square-foot expansion and the existing space will be renovated, with additional exam rooms and treatment spaces. 

The funding will have a net benefit to all patients in the province, Manitoba Shared Health chief nursing health officer and provincial lead of health system integration and quality Lanette Siragusa said at a news conference Monday morning.

"We know that we can do better for Manitoba patients, and we know that we can improve services for people that live in rural, remote and northern communities," she said.

The plan has been developed in consultation with health leaders across the province, Siragusa said, a process that took on increased intensity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The pandemic has … highlighted gaps, gaps that have been in our system for a long time, and new challenges that have arisen that we need to address now," she said.

Pallister said too many patients need to travel long distances to get care in Winnipeg. 

"These are provincewide improvements and they're being made because accessing the health-care system, whether it be for a test, a diagnosis or treatment, can be stressful. It can be scary," he said.

"Now imagine if you have to leave the comforts of your own home, your own neighbourhood, and move to somewhere else, halfway across the province or elsewhere. That just adds to that stress."

Construction on the Brandon projects will begin next year and is expected to be complete by 2025. 

New hospital in Portage la Prairie

The province also announced it planned to build a new hospital in Portage la Prairie. 

With a minimum of 90 acute-care inpatient beds, increased day surgery capacity, expanded emergency department and more space for medical programs like dialysis and diagnostics, the two-storey facility will be double the size of the existing Portage District General Hospital.

Just as the expanded facilities at the Brandon Regional Health Centre will serve as a hub for the Prairie Mountain Health region, so too will the new Portage hospital provide services for the wider Southern Health region. It is also expected to be complete by 2025.

Southern Health the fastest rising population out of all of Manitoba's health region, growing by 14,000 in the past five years to approximately 212,000, the province said in a news release.