ManitobaSome patients at a Winnipeg emergency room are speaking out over exceedingly long wait times, while the Manitoba Nurses Union says it’s seen wait times rising across the city in the last two months.Wait times at 2 Winnipeg ERs were at least 10 hours on Wednesday nightDave Baxter · CBC News · Posted: Sep 03, 2025 11:29 PM EDT | Last Updated: 2 hours agoArlene Kennington says she returned to the emergency department at Health Sciences Centre for a second time on Wednesday, after waiting so long on Tuesday that she gave up and went home. (Ron Dhaliwal/CBC)Some patients at a Winnipeg emergency room are speaking out over exceedingly long wait times, while the Manitoba Nurses Union says it’s seen wait times rising across the city in the last two months.On Wednesday, Winnipegger Arlene Kennington returned to the emergency room at the Health Sciences Centre for a second time, after waiting so long for care on Tuesday that she finally gave up and went home.Kennington says she arrived on Tuesday with symptoms including loss of vision and hearing and extreme dizziness. She said after getting a few tests done she was told to wait in the waiting room, where she waited for approximately eight hours — from around 1 p.m. until around 9 p.m. — before she left.”And you don’t see a doctor for eight hours. You might as well go home and feel like that where you’re comfortable,” she said. “But it’s scary.”Kennington said she left after hearing some people in the emergency room tell her they had been waiting upwards of 20 hours for care, and after staff warned her that wait times would be long.”At nine o’clock, the night nurse came in and said, ‘We are experiencing lots of delays so it could be a long night for everybody,'” Kennington said.’What can you do?’On Wednesday, Kennington said her symptoms persisted and she called her doctor, who told her to return to the ER.”She said, ‘No, you have to go back and wait. It doesn’t matter if it’s 20 hours,’ and I know people here yesterday [Tuesday] were waiting 20 hours,” she said.”It’s still the same symptoms and it’s like symptoms of a stroke, and I told them yesterday what was happening, but what can you do?”Norm Penton said he went to Health Sciences Centre on Tuesday with neck and back issues and was seen pretty quickly. Like Kennington, he said he witnessed some people waiting longer than 20 hours for care.”There were a few ladies that came in triage with me, and when I woke up this morning they were still in the waiting room, more than 20 hours,” Penton said Wednesday.Winnipegger Norm Penton says he went to the Health Sciences Centre emergency room on Tuesday, where he said he witnessed some people waiting longer than 20 hours for care. (Ron Dhaliwal/CBC)The Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s My Right Care website, which provides a snapshot of current wait times at several emergency departments, showed the longest wait times as of 9:21 p.m. Wednesday were 10 and 10½ hours at St. Boniface Hospital the Health Sciences Centre’s adult emergency department, respectively. The wait time at Grace Hospital was at 7.25 hours, and at HSC’s Children’s Hospital it was 4.25 hours.A WRHA spokesperson said the real-time wait times shown on the website are meant to be a guide for patients and can change quickly.Meanwhile, the health authority’s website shows median wait times for all Winnipeg hospitals went up from 3.40 hours in June to 3.65 hours in July. The WRHA says median wait time data for August will be posted online later this month.’We haven’t seen a reduction,’ says nurses unionThe rise in wait times comes even after the Manitoba government announced in May that it has partnered with front-line health-care staff to form a Lower Wait Time and System Improvement Team, which would develop a strategy to reduce blockages in the health-care system and reduce patient wait times in emergency rooms.Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson said Wednesday she has heard from nurses working in Winnipeg hospitals that they have seen no noticeable improvements in wait times since the team was first announced. “What’s been reported, and what we’re hearing from nurses, is that wait times are longer and that there seems to be more bottlenecking in our ERs and our urgent cares,” Jackson said.”We haven’t seen a reduction in wait times, so I’m not sure what’s happening with that team right now, and I certainly haven’t heard from front-line staff that there’s been any improvement or anything to come forward from this team.”So I truly hope it’s not just another committee that’s put together to sort of put a finger in the dike, because we do need something that will truly deal with wait times.”Manitoba Nurses Union President Darlene Jackson, seen here in a file photo, says she has heard from nurses working in Winnipeg hospitals that they have seen no noticeable improvements in wait times since the province announced the creation of the Lower Wait Time and System Improvement Team. (Josh Crabb/CBC)A spokesperson for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority stated in an email that there’s often a surge in volume for emergency room patients following a long weekend, and said that’s what hospitals in the city have been seeing since the Labour Day long weekend.”Emergency department volumes and wait times can vary vastly throughout a given time period based on constantly changing demands,” the spokesperson wrote.”All sites, and the health system as a whole, have protocols in place to help manage capacity, mitigate risk and ensure patients, particularly those with the most urgent needs, get the care they need.”We recognize that all Manitobans expect access to timely, high-quality health care when they need it. Waiting for care in our emergency departments and urgent care centres is difficult, especially if you are sick or in pain.”Rising ER wait times a concern for Winnipeg patients, nurses’ unionSome patients having to wait long hours at Winnipeg emergency rooms, as well as the Manitoba Nurses Union, are sounding the alarm over rising wait times, months after the Manitoba government launched a team tasked with reducing those times.ABOUT THE AUTHORDave Baxter is an award-winning reporter and editor currently working for CBC Manitoba. Born and raised in Winnipeg, he has also previously reported for the Winnipeg Sun and the Winnipeg Free Press, as well as several rural Manitoba publications.With files from Rosanna Hempel
Long ER wait times continue to frustrate patients in Winnipeg
