Medical directors from four Winnipeg community hospitals have issued a stark warning: the city's urgent care and emergency network is on the brink of disintegration, and patient deaths are inevitable without immediate action.
In a confidential March 12 letter to health-care leadership, top doctors at Grace, Victoria, Seven Oaks, and Concordia hospitals detailed severe physician shortages that force daily high-risk triage decisions.
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“We do not want to stand at the bedside of another person who deteriorated due to preventable delays and gaps in care — knowing their outcome would have been different,” the medical directors wrote.
The letter stressed that systemic changes are urgently needed to protect patient safety across Manitoba.
“We are asking for urgent action now to prevent a preventable death and to ensure Manitobans can count on timely, safe, compassionate emergency care when they need it most,” the document stated.
According to the directors, it has become routine for a single physician to run an entire emergency room while simultaneously managing other hospital crises, escalating clinical risks.
“If one of these patients experiences a bad outcome, we will have to answer to their families why this happened, and whether it could have been preventable,” the letter warned.
The document projected a 28.1 percent vacancy rate for emergency physician shifts in April, worsening to a 45 percent shortage at Seven Oaks by summer, making temporary department closures a realistic possibility.
“Overall, we are repeatedly forced to choose who appears sickest — accepting that others may deteriorate while waiting, may leave without care, or may return later in extremis.
