Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - March 7, 2022, Winnipeg, Manitoba C M Y K PAGE A2 MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2022 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMA2 NEWS I TOPIC VOL 151 NO 115 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2021 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. Published seven days a week at 1355 Mountain Avenue, Winnipeg, Manitoba R2X 3B6, PH: 204-697-7000 Publisher / BOB COX Editor / PAUL SAMYN Associate Editor Enterprise / SCOTT GIBBONS Associate Editor News / STACEY THIDRICKSON Associate Editor Digital News / WENDY SAWATZKY Director Photo and Multimedia / MIKE APORIUS NEWSMEDIA COUNCIL The Winnipeg Free Press is a member of the National Newsmedia Council, which is an independent organization established to determine acceptable journalistic practices and ethical behaviour. If you have concerns about editorial content, please send them to: editorialconcerns@freepress.mb.ca. 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INSIDE Arts and Life D1 Business B4 Classifieds B6 Comics D4 Diversions D5-6 Horoscope D5 Jumble D5 Miss Lonelyhearts D5 Obituaries B5 Opinion A6-7 Sports C1 Television D2 Weather C8 COLUMNISTS: Niigaan Sinclair A4 Shelley Cook B1 Aaron Epp B3 MONDAY, MARCH 7, 2022 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COMA2 READER SERVICE ● GENERAL INQUIRIES 204-697-7000 CIRCULATION INQUIRIES MISSING OR INCOMPLETE PAPER? Call or email before 10 a.m. weekdays or 11 a.m. Saturday City: 204-697-7001 Outside Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 press 1 6:30 a.m. - 4 p.m. Monday-Friday.; 7 a.m. - noon Saturday; Closed Sunday TO SUBSCRIBE: 204-697-7001 Out of Winnipeg: 1-800-542-8900 The Free Press receives support from the Local Journalism Initiative funded by the Government of Canada Analyzing health data proves a frustrating experience T HE number of Manitobans on wait lists for diagnostic services may be down slightly, but the length of time people are waiting for MRIs, CT scans and ultrasounds has increased, according to data from Manitoba Health’s wait time informa- tion system. Those wait times were not included in data posted online Friday by the province’s diagnostic and surgical recovery task force, after Health Minister Audrey Gordon promised the task force would provide a full update that day. “After riding out the fourth wave (of the COVID-19 pandemic), the second most im por tant issue for our gov ern- ment is the diag nostic and surgical recovery backlog,” Gordon said during question period Thursday. “That is why we esta blished a diag nos tic and surgi- cal recovery task force, and that’s why tomorrow at the update, Manitobans will hear about the great work that is being done by the task force.” There was no update Friday, at least not the one expected, where the minis- ter and the head of the task force — Dr. Peter MacDonald — would provide Manitobans with detailed information about backlogs and answer questions about plans to reduce them. Instead, the task force released an incomplete document late Friday that failed to include information about how long people were waiting for diagnostic and surgical services. The task force reported the number of people waiting for CT scans, ultra- sounds and MRIs fell between 12 and 16 per cent from December to January. However, the number of people on a wait list is not a measurement of how long they have to wait for a procedure. What the task force didn’t reveal is wait times for those procedures have increased since last year, according to Manitoba Health figures updated Feb. 22. The average wait time for an MRI across the province increased to 22 weeks in January from 19 in Decem- ber. Wait times increased at seven of nine locations across the province, including a significant jump at Pan Am Clinic (where MacDonald works as the chief innovation and research officer) from 18 to 26 weeks. It’s the longest Manitobans have had to wait for an MRI since May 2021, when the average wait time was 24 weeks. Wait times for CT scans increased from 17 to 19 weeks between Decem- ber and January (the highest since July) and from 17 to 20 weeks for ultra- sounds (the highest since August). Wait times for bone density scans and myocardial perfusion tests (which show how blood flows to the heart mus- cle) also increased in January. Diagnostic testing is used largely to diagnose disease and injury in patients and is often critical in establishing treatment plans. Long wait times can lead to delays in treatment. Manitoba Health data show the number of diagnostic procedures performed has not increased since last year. The number of monthly MRI scans in 2021 ranged from about 7,500 to 8,000. In January, 7,724 scans were performed. There were 19,978 CT scans per- formed in January, down from 21,251 in December – the lowest since Febru- ary 2021. Also, the number of ultra- sound exams fell to 16,040 in January from 17,075 in December. Meanwhile, wait times for some surgeries, including hip and knee replacement, fell in January but were still higher than they were in mid- 2021. The total number of hip and knee surgeries performed in January fell to 245 from 392 in December (well below the monthly average of 333 surgeries in 2021). The number of cataract sur- geries also fell in January to 896, down from 944 in December and below the monthly average of 1,132 in 2021. None of these data were included in the task force’s update Friday, nor did the health minister or task force members make themselves available to answer questions about them. This is pure incompetence. Gordon said Thursday the task force hasn’t provided Manitobans with monthly updates (as promised in December) because they didn’t want to give the public “false hope” by announcing something that didn’t contain “substan- tial information.” Instead, she gave Manitobans false hope Thursday substantial progress would be announced Friday. It wasn’t. Gordon then changed her excuse: she claimed Friday, through a spokes- man, she was limited in what she could announce, owing to the blackout on advertising leading up to the March 22 byelection in Fort Whyte — a ban that clearly doesn’t apply to ongoing government programs. The train wreck continues. tom.brodbeck@freepress.mb.ca Province needs to up its game on communications TOM BRODBECK OPINION Her loved ones are staying optimistic, she said. “We’re trying to talk about something else,” she said, adding it’s difficult, but sometimes school is mentioned. On the day Russia invaded Ukraine, one friend — a medi- cal student — took her dermatology exam online. Shypilova’s parents don’t plan on leaving, and she still wants to return. “We’ll stay strong,” she said. “We should be even stronger a little bit later (too), because we need to rebuild our cities (and) we need to rebuild our culture.” For now, she connects with friends fleeing their homes and calls her parents daily. Rally attendee Suzanne Wowchuk, 53, said she came to Broadway because she feels helpless about Ukraine’s situation. “The least we can do is come together as a community, stand with Ukraine, pray together (and) hope together,” the Ukrainian said. Part of Sunday’s event was to inform people about ways they can support, said Alexandra Shkandrij, the rally’s co-organizer. She helped put on the late February rally for Ukraine in the same location; it drew roughly 5,000 people. “The intensity of the situation is just really escalating, and so our calls are significantly more intense,” Shkandrij said. On Sunday, there were booths accepting donations and displaying QR codes that linked to organizations aiding Ukraine. The Canadian Ukrainian Congress has also created a portal for Manitobans wanting to house Ukrainian refugees. Shkandrij is hopeful the number of people showing their support will zap politicians into stronger action. “I hope that there is enough political will, and more im- portantly… political leadership to make these really tough decisions, because we have to make them whether we want to or not,” she said. Her father, Myroslav Shkandrij, who’s a professor emeritus of German and Slavic studies at the University of Manitoba, spoke at the rally. He brought up the 1994 Budapest Memorandum, an agreement in which Ukraine transferred its nuclear arsenal to Russia for decommissioning. In return, the United States, United Kingdom and Russia were to respect Ukraine’s independence and sovereignty. Ukraine wouldn’t be invaded had they not accepted the deal, some in the crowd, including the professor’s daughter and Polishchuk, said. Politicians of all stripes, including Premier Heather Ste- fanson, spoke and were in attendance. Earlier in the afternoon, a group of less than 100 gathered at The Forks to call for non-violent means to ending war in Ukraine. “Ceasefire now. Negotiate peace” read the sign behind the rally’s speakers. Peace Alliance Winnipeg held the event. Glenn Michalchuk, the alliance’s chair, said a no-fly zone over Ukraine is not the route to ending war. “That, to us, is an escalation of the conflict, and even NATO has said that’s an escalation of the conflict,” he said. “There has to be a de-escalation of tensions, and there has to be diplomacy.” A ceasefire is essential; if it doesn’t happen, there could be a world war, he said. “I think there’s enough common sense in the international community” to enact a ceasefire, he added. Daniel McClelland was in attendance. He fears a third world war if NATO involves itself further. “We don’t want to see NATO in Ukraine, and we don’t want to see Russia in Ukraine. We just want Ukraine to be left alone,” he said. Groups including the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, the United Jewish People’s Order and the Communist Party of Canada’s Manitoba chapter were in attendance. gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com SUPPORTERS ● FROM A1 “You should take to the streets! You should fight!” he said Saturday on Ukrainian televi- sion. “It is necessary to go out and drive this evil out of our cities, from our land.” Zelenskyy also asked the United States and NATO countries to send more warplanes to Ukraine, though that idea is complicated by questions about which countries would provide the aircraft and how those countries would replace the planes. He later urged the West to tighten its sanc- tions on Russia, saying that “the audacity of the aggressor is a clear signal” that existing sanctions are not enough. The war, now in its 11th day, has caused 1.5 million people to flee the country. The head of the U.N. refugee agency called the exodus “the fastest-growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.” A senior US defence official said Sunday that the U.S. assesses that about 95% of the Russian forces that had been arrayed around Ukraine are now in the country. The official said Russian forces continue to advance and attempt to isolate Kyiv, Kharkhiv and Cherni- hiv, and are being met with strong Ukrainian resistance. The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military assessments, said the convoy outside Kyiv continues to be stalled. As he has often done, Putin blamed Ukraine for the war, telling Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday that Kyiv needed to stop all hostilities and fulfill “the well- known demands of Russia.” Putin launched his invasion with a string of false accusations against Kyiv, including that it is led by neo-Nazis intent on undermin- ing Russia with the development of nuclear weapons. The Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday announced that its forces intend to strike Ukraine’s military-industrial complex with what it said were precision weapons. A minis- try spokesman, Igor Konashenkov, claimed in a statement carried by the state news agency Tass that Ukrainian personnel were being forced to repair damaged military equipment so that it could be sent back into action. Zelenskyy criticized Western leaders for not responding to Russia’s latest threat. “I didn’t hear even a single world leader react to this,” Zelenskyy said Sunday evening. Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron spoke about the nuclear situation in Ukraine, which has 15 nuclear reactors at four power plants and was the scene of the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The men agreed in principle to a “dialogue” involving Russia, Ukraine and the U.N.’s atom- ic watchdog, according to a French official who spoke on condition of anonymity, in line with the presidency’s practices. Potential talks on the issue are to be organized in the coming days, he said. Putin also blamed the fire last week at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, which Ukrainian officials said was caused by Russian attack- ers, on a “provocation organized by Ukrainian radicals.” “Attempts to shift responsibility for this incident onto the Russian military are part of a cynical propaganda campaign,” he said, according to the French official. International leaders, as well as Pope Fran- cis, appealed to Putin to negotiate. In a highly unusual move, the pope said he had dispatched two cardinals to Ukraine to try to end the conflict. “In Ukraine, rivers of blood and tears are flowing,” the pontiff said in his traditional Sunday blessing. After the cease-fire in Mariupol failed to hold Saturday, Russian forces intensified their shelling of the city and dropped massive bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said. About eight civilians were killed by Russian shelling in the town of Irpin, on the north- west outskirts of Kyiv, according to Mayor Oleksander Markyshin. The dead included a family. Video footage showed a shell slamming into a city street, not far from a bridge used by people fleeing the fighting. A group of fighters could be seen trying to help the family. The handful of residents who managed to flee Mariupol before the humanitarian corri- dor closed said the city of 430,000 had been devastated. “We saw everything: houses burning, all the people sitting in basements,” said Yelena Zamay, who fled to one of the self-proclaimed republics in eastern Ukraine held by pro-Rus- sian separatists. “No communication, no water, no gas, no light, no water. There was nothing.” British military officials compared Russia’s tactics to those Moscow used in Chechnya and Syria, where surrounded cities were pulver- ized by airstrikes and artillery. “This is likely to represent an effort to break Ukrainian morale,” the U.K. Ministry of Defense said. Zelenskyy reiterated a request for for- eign protectors to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine, which NATO so far has ruled out because of concerns such an action would lead to a far wider war. “The world is strong enough to close our skies,” Zelenskyy said Sunday in a video address. The day before, Zelenskyy pleaded with American lawmakers in a video call to help get more warplanes to Ukraine. U.S. officials say Washington is discussing ways to get the planes to Ukraine in a complex scenario that would include sending Ameri- can-made F-16s to former Soviet bloc nations, particularly Poland, that are now members of NATO. Those countries would then send Ukraine their own Soviet-era MiGs, which Ukrainian pilots are trained to fly. But because of production backlogs on the U.S. warplanes, the Eastern European nations would essentially have to give their MiGs to the Ukrainians and accept U.S. promises that they would get F-16s as soon as that was possible. Adding to the difficulties is the fact that the next shipment of F-16s is destined for Taiwan, and the U.S. Congress would be reluctant to delay those deliveries. The Russian military has warned Ukraine’s neighbors against hosting its warplanes, say- ing that Moscow may consider those counties part of the conflict if Ukrainian aircraft fly combat missions from their territory. The death toll remains lost in the fog of war. The U.N. says it has confirmed just a few hundred civilian deaths but also warned that the number is a vast undercount. Ukraine’s military is greatly outmatched by Russia’s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. In Kyiv, volunteers lined up Saturday to join the military. Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance. Onlookers in Chernihiv cheered as they watched a Russian military plane fall from the sky and crash, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and shouted, “Go home.” Russia has made significant advances in southern Ukraine as it seeks to block access to the Sea of Azov. Capturing Mariupol could allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014 in a move that most other countries considered illegal. — The Associated Press SHELLING ● FROM A1 EFREM LUKATSKY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Amid the conflict, two members of the Ukrainian Territorial Defence Forces got married Sunday. 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