Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 2, 2025, Winnipeg, Manitoba FRIDAY, MAY 2, 2025 A2 ● WINNIPEGFREEPRESS.COM The purpose is to improve patient monitoring and ease pressure on nurses. “What we’ve done, as a government, is make sure that consistently across our emergency departments not only are they staffing to baseline, but going above that by utilizing the skills of health-care aides who are trained and have the tools to do assessments like vital signs and other things that can help ensure people are getting care in the emergency department,” Asag- wara said. Margaret Schroeder, president of CUPE Local 204, which represents health-care aides at HSC, said addi- tional community support workers were assigned to the HSC emergency department after the death of Brian Sinclair in 2008. Schroeder said she welcomes steps to improve the system, but they must come with proper funding and ensure they don’t overload health-care aides or support workers. Other recommendations include an internal waiting room surge protocol, improvements to patient oversight and communication, and larger sys- tem-wide measures to improve wait times and patient flow. Asagwara said action has been taken on all of the 17 recommendations. The review’s findings and recommenda- tions were shared with Giffin’s family. His sister, Ronalee Reynolds, said her family is satisfied with the review and the steps taken by the province and Shared Health, which operates HSC. She said her family does not place blame on front-line staff nor any fault on Shared Health. Some recommenda- tions will require additional employ- ees, she noted. “I just hope that they do get the staffing. I think that is the biggest issue,” Reynolds said. Initially, Giffin’s family had a number of questions, including what caused his death and how many times he was assessed between the time he arrived and the time he was found unresponsive. Reynolds said a report from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner listed her brother’s primary cause of death as acute bacterial pneumonia. After arriving just before midnight and being triaged, he was checked in the waiting room at about 2:30 a.m. and 5 a.m., she said. Giffin’s vital signs and breathing were good, and his oxygen levels were fine, Reynolds said. “Everything was normal. There was no reason for them to believe he had pneumonia to begin with,” she said. At about 7 a.m. — about an hour before staff noticed his condition had worsened — he told an employee he was fine. “They didn’t do any checks because he was alert, and he said he was OK and he didn’t need anything,” Reynolds said. Giffin, who had been homeless and struggled with mental health issues and addictions, was under the care of the public guardian and trustee. Paramedics took him to the ER after he was found outside in the cold by a concerned person near Main Street and Henry Avenue. Reynolds was informed her brother, who estranged himself from his family about a decade ago, told the public guardian and trustee he had no next of kin. Giffin’s family learned about his death from a journalist. Reynolds has said a Shared Health official contacted her three days after the death to con - firm Giffin was the man who had died in the ER, prompting concerns about next-of-kin notification processes. At the family’s request, health authorities were instructed to amend policies when it comes to notifying the next of kin of patients under the care of the public guardian and trustee. There also were questions about the communication between Shared Health and Asagwara’s department after Giffin died. Internal emails obtained by the Globe and Mail through a freedom of information request showed deputy health minister Scott Sinclair found out about Giffin’s death hours later and after it was reported by media. On Thursday, Asagwara said they and their office were notified of the death “not soon enough.” “The information did not flow as quickly as it should have,” they said. “As the minister, there are a few things that are fundamentally important in terms of how our relationships with regional health authorities and leaders across the system function.” “Accountability, transparency and communication are key, whether you’re talking about finances… or tragedies,” the minister said. chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca NEWS VOL 154 NO 144 Winnipeg Free Press est 1872 / Winnipeg Tribune est 1890 2025 Winnipeg Free Press, a division of FP Canadian Newspapers Limited Partnership. 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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 The recommendations THE Manitoba government said 17 recommen- dations were made during a critical incident review following the death of Chad Giffin in Health Sciences Centre’s emergency room in January. Action has been taken on all of them, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said. Training was implemented for 15 health-care aides to per- form vitals checks on patients in the emergency department. One health-care aide position was dedicated to the task 24-7. A further 44 unit assistants were added to support the work. Staffing schedules were reviewed to ensure emergency departments were operating at baseline, and staff on shift were trained to use automated external defibrillators. An internal waiting room surge protocol was developed. Enhanced oversight and communication: reinforcing protocols with staff during daily huddles, reviewing 10 patient records a week for protocols, and reviewing community support worker logs to ensure hourly rounds are done on patients. Service delivery organizations were instructed to review and amend policies related to notifying next of kin in cases involving the death of a patient under the care of the public guardian and trustee. Policies should reflect that familial next of kin must be contacted. Larger system-wide improvements to improve wait times and patient flow (beyond HSC’s emergency department) are underway that look at improving staffing models, community care program enhancements and expanding care on weekends. Shared Health and the Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service’s joint operation committee advocated for a review of transport destination algorithms with the intent to safely diversify receiving sites. Current guidelines to address the triage process were reviewed and updated to focus on the value of direct assessment. To develop a process to ensure staff assignments to the triage area are equitably distributed amongst all triage trained nurses. Assessing options to expand/enhance several lower-acuity patient units to reduce overcrowd- ing. Reviewing supportive services that are part of capacity and flow protocols (like surge protocols) to expand or enhance night and weekends. Aligning, prioritizing, triaging and monitor- ing processes with practices in triage when the space is crowded with triaged patients waiting to be seen, patients awaiting followup, family and support people, members of the public. Exploring alternative points of entry through direct admission processes for transfers and specialist consultations. Reviewing staffing models in the waiting room and contingency planning during times of high patient volumes to support nursing reassessment. Environmental reviews of the waiting room to improve lines of site from triage and opportun- ities to enhance privacy during assessments. Installing weapon-detection technology in the emergency department and developing a harm-reduction strategy that addresses risks within the ED, as well as expanding supports for social workers in the ED. Reviewing internal communication and information systems to highlight care needs, clarify actions and roles. “This has just been … a wakeup call,” Tran-Riese said, adding she hopes to increase Canadian and Euro- pean sales. Runnin’ Red Transport has clocked a decrease in some freight during its travels across the Manitoba-North Dakota border. Shipments from export- ers selling Chinese-made goods have “pretty much stopped,” said Trevor Froese, company co-founder. He began Runnin’ Red a decade ago. The company delivers Manitoba busi- nesses’ items to the U.S. and brings back Manitobans’ U.S. orders. “If their (exports are) made in China, then it’s not going to happen anymore,” Froese said. He’s watched some entrepreneurs — sellers on online platform Etsy, for example — close shop due to the rule change. GHY International, a Winni- peg-based brokerage, has tracked a decrease in ocean shipments from China to the U.S. “We could see an issue if, all of a sudden, China and the U.S. come to some agreement,” said Chris Ba- chinski, GHY International co-chief executive. He forecasts an increase in con- tainer prices as demand surges and businesses look to ship. For now, cross-border semi traffic is down, per the Manitoba Trucking Association. “Multiple months of this could be very … destructive,” executive direc- tor Aaron Dolyniuk said. A couple trucking companies have closed and layoffs have occurred, Dolyniuk said. He declined to name examples. Manitoba is subject to U.S. tariffs of 25 per cent on its steel and aluminum exports, foreign auto contributions and goods not meeting the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement on trade. Businesses also face Canada’s 25 per cent retaliatory tariffs on $59.8 billion worth of goods. Even so, trade volumes have stayed “very consistent” at GHY Internation- al, Bachinski said. “We have a very resilient group of businesses that are finding ways to keep product mov- ing.” Manitoba businesses might share the tariff cost with an American client, bear the brunt or fully pass it on, depending on the situation. Slowdowns were made up for in earlier months during a “mad rush” to move product into the U.S. ahead of tariffs, Bachins- ki said. It’s a rush Runnin’ Red experienced. Farm equipment and horses were among the items doubling, sometimes tripling, their usual export volume in March. “There was a lot of panic from some of our customers,” said Froese, who also operates Runnin’ Red as a broker- age. Uncertainty and tariff costs continue to plague small businesses, said Tyler Slobogian, a CFIB senior policy ana- lyst. The business advocate estimates firms’ input costs will rise 3.5 per cent because of tariffs. Companies who relied on the de minimis exemption for their Chi- nese-made goods will look at raising prices or eating the surtax, Slobogian stated. “With higher input costs, the question kind of remains … how much will (businesses) be forced to pass along?” The CFIB is advocating for prov- inces to reduce interprovincial trade barriers and provide tax relief. The Manitoba government allowed for payment deferrals of the retail sales tax and the health and post-sec- ondary education tax levy, or the payroll tax, from February through April. It led to roughly $840 million of liquidity, a government news release reads. “It’s welcome for businesses who are looking for some temporary cash flow,” Slobogian said. “(But) it’s going to be difficult for many businesses to repay that … when it’s due.” GHY International is notifying customers about money they can claim from Ottawa through a remission process, if the firm has been impacted by U.S. levies, Chinese import duties or Canada’s countermeasures. gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com AIDES ● FROM A1 TARIFFS ● FROM A1 RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES Kathy Tran-Riese, founder of KayTran Eyewear, says she’s had to stop shipments of eyewear to the U.S. as they’d jump from $200 to $500 because of U.S. tariffs on goods of Chinese origin. Team of front-line workers to tackle hospital wait times T HE Manitoba government has released a new strategy aimed at lowering hospital emergency room wait times, with an initial goal of cutting key metrics by an hour. Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara said it’s hoped the two metrics — for pa- tients waiting to be seen in an ER and for patients who leave without being seen — begin to improve in six months to a year. “We’re looking at reducing those wait times by approximately an hour,” Asagwara said at a news conference at Health Sciences Centre Thursday. “Ul- timately, our goal is to meaningfully lower those wait times and sustain that over time. If metrics improve in four months, in eight months, and we see a reduction of two hours, great, but we need to sustain that.” The median “waiting to be seen time” (from registration upon arrival to seeing a doctor or nurse practitioner) reached a high of four hours in Decem- ber 2023 at Winnipeg’s four emergency rooms and three urgent care centres, the government said. The median was 3.92 in March, as per the latest data from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. The “left without being seen rate” measures patients who leave ERs be- fore an assessment or treatment by a doctor or nurse practitioner. It is an indicator of ER performance, particu- larly excessively long wait times. At Winnipeg hospitals, between 14.2 and 17.3 per cent of patients left with- out being seen in the 12 months up to March, as per government data. Hiring more front-line staff is a key part of the plan to reduce wait times, Asagwara said. The NDP government said it has hired more than 1,600 net new health-care staff and added 240 fully staffed beds since being elected in October 2023. The strategy involves a new team, made up of doctors, nurses, other front- line staff and process engineers, that is tasked with reducing wait times. Asagwara vowed the team’s work and structure will be different from ER wait time task forces or committees set up by past governments. Costs are in- cluded in the 2025-26 budget, they said. The group, already at work for a few months, is proposing changes sys- tem-wide, not just in ERs, to help im- prove the quality of care to Manitobans. Many involve expanding or using ex- isting resources more efficiently. Access block is one of the main bar- riers to reducing wait times, Asagwara said. It happens when admitted ER pa- tients cannot be transferred because staffed beds elsewhere in the health system are not available. The team is exploring ways to reduce access block at triage, which team co- chair Dr. Kendiss Olafson said would involve staff seeing to patients in the waiting room when an ER is over- whelmed. A new Manitoba 811 service, incor- porating Health Links and virtual ser- vices, is designed to help nurses triage and redirect low-acuity patients away from ERs. Another initiative is the return of a virtual ward and an expansion of home- based care teams to allow certain pa- tients to receive care in their home. There are plans to do more endoscopy procedures, and expand a program that provides intravenous therapy in pa- tients’ homes rather than at a hospital. Olafson said the team aims to expand services, add capacity and break down barriers, as well as not create more work for staff. Heidi Adamko, a process engineer and team member, recounted the chal- lenges and long waits her mother faced while receiving care for cancer. Her mother, in the nine days before she died, spent two nights and one day in waiting rooms, and three days in emergency beds waiting for a bed else- where, before being moved to palliative care, Adamko said. “Her story isn’t unique. Unfortu- nately, these waits have become the normal experience for Manitobans ac- cessing acute care,” she said. Adamko said she’s grateful to get an opportunity to improve care for others. “At some point, each of us will find ourselves waiting for care. My hope is that no one waits as long as my mom did in the final week of their life,” she said. Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said the team is made up of people who want to make a differ- ence. ER wait times in Manitoba, she added, have climbed for the fourth year in a row. Asagwara blamed ER current wait times on cuts and facility closures by the former Tory government. Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook said the “blame game” isn’t going to solve the problem. “Accountability and action are going to solve the problem,” she said. Cook said she has a “great deal” of respect for the team’s members. A 12-page strategy document released Thursday was “very thin,” she said. “The NDP announced an ER wait time strategy in their throne speech back in the fall. It’s been months since then,” Cook said. “I’m, frankly, very surprised that this is all they’ve come up with in the time in between. I don’t see this as an actionable strategy. I see it more as a political document.” She said the document should include targets, timelines and an analysis of the additional capacity that is needed throughout the system to lower wait times. chris.kitching@freepress.mb.ca CHRIS KITCHING ;