Letters, Aug. 27

Real investment required

Re: Condition critical (Aug. 22)

Manitoba’s hospital crisis is often blamed on the aging population, bed shortages and staffing challenges. But these are symptoms, not causes. The facts show the situation has deteriorated far beyond what demographic change alone can explain.

At the Health Sciences Centre, all 58 treatment beds are routinely full, with another dozen ambulance patients lined up in hallways under the care of a single nurse. Thirty to 40 people wait in the ER for hours — many for 10 to 20 hours — before seeing a physician because “there’s no place for them to go.” Patients are deteriorating while they wait. The 90th-percentile wait time hit 12.3 hours in June — triple pre-pandemic levels. Manitoba now has among the highest ER wait times in Canada.

These conditions are not the root cause of the crisis. They are the predictable outcome of a system that has failed to build or fund the capacity required for Manitoba’s growing and aging population.

Winnipeg Regional Health Authority spending rose only modestly from $2.1 billion in 2009-10 to $2.4 billion today. After inflation and population growth, real per-capita funding is flat or declining — even as demand and complexity of care have increased.

Meanwhile, government responses focus on short-term fixes within existing budgets — directing care homes to temporarily take hospital patients; opening minor-injury clinics that ER physicians say do not meaningfully reduce wait times; and shifting beds between sites. These measures shuffle pressure around the system but do not expand long-term capacity or address the core choke point — thousands of acute-care beds occupied by patients waiting weeks or months for alternate-level-of-care placements.

The WRHA cannot raise revenue, borrow or create long-term reserves. It receives annual allocations from the province, forcing short-term, reactive management. Yet health-care infrastructure, staffing pipelines, diagnostics and emergency-department expansion require 10 to 15 years of sustained investment — not four-year election cycles.

If Manitobans want a health-care system that works, we need structural reforms — legislated multi-year capacity plans, independent oversight from bodies such as the auditor general and the Canadian Institute for Health Information, mandatory long-term capital planning, transparent reporting and multi-year funding commitments that survive elections.

Manitobans deserve more than explanations about aging populations or staff shortages. Those are symptoms. The real issue is a political and governance structure incapable of long-term planning — and our health-care system cannot remain stable if it is managed only from one election to the next.

Karl Koenig

Winnipeg

Hudson Bay a natural haven

Re: Climate change, capable ships could extend Churchill shipping season by months, studies show (Aug. 21)

Premier Wab Kinew’s comments about longer shipping seasons from Churchill and the economic opportunities that could bring were notable for something that was left out. He briefly raised the importance of protecting the environment as development expands, but made no mention of the work underway to explore establishing a National Marine Conservation Area in western Hudson Bay. I was surprised, as the premier has been a champion of the conservation area, which could safeguard this globally renowned haven for polar bears, beluga whales and migratory birds. Protecting these species is important in its own right and essential to Churchill’s $100-million annual tourism industry and regional Indigenous cultures.

Western Hudson Bay is a living, breathing northern treasure, where belugas gather by the thousands, polar bears patrol the coast and millions of birds follow ancient migratory paths. It is wild, spectacular and irreplaceable. If we are going to unlock its economic potential, we have a responsibility not to spend that natural capital in the process.

A conservation area can be designed to work with sustainable economic activities while protecting the ecological values that make western Hudson Bay unique. As shipping traffic grows and seasons lengthen, the need for clear rules, monitoring and long-term stewardship only becomes greater.

Last year, Manitoba committed to partnering with Parks Canada and regional governments to advance the conservation area initiative. That commitment belongs at the forefront of conversations about expanding the port and increasing shipping, not as a sidepiece or left unmentioned.

Manitoba and northern communities have an opportunity to show the world that economic opportunity, conservation and Indigenous and local cultures can thrive together. This involves securing a healthy environment from the beginning.

As we plan for more ships in western Hudson Bay, we need to protect what makes this world-class treasure worth celebrating in the first place.

Ron Thiessen

Executive director

Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society Manitoba

Study no more

Re: City needs to deliver safety to bus drivers (Aug. 26)

Providing a safe work environment for bus drivers is a no brainer. You could not pay me enough to take on the role and yet, in theory, it should be a good job, providing an essential service for many.

Admittedly, I have rarely used transit myself and cannot claim to have witnessed any violence — just an intoxicated woman sharing a bottle with her son across from me — but, if I were to find myself having to use it regularly, I would do so with trepidation.

Tom Brodbeck sums it up nicely: ‘It’s time to stop studying …’ Perhaps if the City of Winnipeg spent less time doing studies, it would find the necessary resources.

Debbie Ristimaki

Winnipeg

This mortal coil

Re: Cryopreservation — now that’s playing the long game (Aug. 26)

In Pam Frampton’s essay on cryopreservation, the author poses an important rhetorical question: “Who wants to live forever?”

I was reminded of Thorton Wilder’s famous play, Our Town, in which the character of Stage Manager opines: “We all know that something is eternal. And it ain’t house, and it ain’t Earth, and it ain’t even the stars … that something has to do with human beings.”

Of course there are no definitive answers to the mystery that is “humanness,” but my own lived experience resonates with the Stage Manager’s musings. Deep within, I believe that we all seek some kind of “beyondness,” that our time on this Earth has some meaning/value beyond our day-to-day existence.

It is such urgings that have led to the pursuit of arts and sciences as well as the search for transcendence through family, ethnicity and patriotism. I think we all need to “matter” not only to those in our circle of familiarity, but to “the world” (however humbly that may be conceived). It seems to me the universality of religion is about this fundamental, and often supressed, need.

I would not like to have my earthly life extended so that I can find out what became of current political figures who come and go. However, my sense is that our lives are about seeking the transcendent reality of things, all the while knowing that we will not find its fullness in this plane of existence. Why? Because the search is an invitation into the realm of mystery, which may well be another way of expressing what is “eternal.”

Edwin Buettner

Winnipeg

Lake Canada, anyone?

I guess it’s time to rename Lake Michigan to Lake Canada! I like the sound of that.

Ken McLean

Starbuck