Almond cookies melt in your mouth

A rural Manitoba physician is warning that Ste. Rose du Lac could face significant emergency department closures after its doctors were stretched thin helping absorb the fallout from the flooding and prolonged shutdown of Dauphin Regional Health Centre.

When Dauphin was evacuated July 1, Ste. Rose expanded its emergency department to 24-7 service and nearly doubled its in-patient load. But with Dauphin’s ER reopening last week and staff that had been temporarily working in Ste. Rose returning to their regular posts, Dr. Ashley Blais says her hospital, located about 50 kilometres southeast of Dauphin, has been left without enough physicians to maintain reliable emergency coverage.

“We answered the call when Manitoba’s health-care system needed us,” Blais said Monday. “Now we are asking the Manitoba health-care system to answer ours.”

Blais, who penned an open letter to Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, is calling on the province, Shared Health and Prairie Mountain Health to urgently develop a sustainable staffing plan for Ste. Rose, with direct input from physicians working there.

BRANDON — A Brandon man has been found guilty of killing his 71-year-old mother with a hatchet in the fall of 2023 after his lawyers argued he should be held not criminally responsible.

Court of King’s Bench Justice Elliot Leven found 47-year-old Gabriel Heymans guilty of second-degree murder on Monday.

Heymans, who listened to the hearing by phone from the Brandon Regional Health Centre, will be sentenced at a later date.

During the April trial, court heard Heymans lived with his mother, Maureen Heymans, for seven years in a two-bedroom apartment in Brandon and hadn’t spoken to her for more than a year before her death.