Manitoba·UpdatedA water main break at Winnipeg’s Seven Oaks Hospital caused some flooding and forced the water supply to be shut down on the weekend.Urgent care department, wellness centre not affected CBC News · Posted: Nov 24, 2025 8:52 AM EST | Last Updated: 21 minutes agoListen to this articleEstimated 3 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Patients whose appointments were affected were being contacted by hospital staff, a news release stated. (CBC)A water main break at Winnipeg’s Seven Oaks Hospital caused some flooding and forced the water supply to be shut down on the weekend.As of early Monday, water was flowing through the pipes again, but a spokesperson said it will take some time before the supply is fully functioning.”We’re running at about 50 per cent service here at the site, because we did have some damage that’s going to have to be evaluated in the next little while,” said Ray Sanchez, chief operating officer for health services with the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.The hospital’s urgent care department remained open without any disruptions, and the Wellness Institute next door to the hospital was not impacted at all, a news release said.The break was discovered around 10 p.m. Saturday after a lower level of the hospital was found to be flooded, the release said.The hospital brought in bottled water and tapped into the neighbouring Wellness Centre as well, in order to have “a basic level of water service” for drinking and flushing toilets, Sanchez said.”We were carrying it in buckets to move it over,” he said. “It was a bit of work, but the staff in the units and throughout the site were absolutely fantastic and really, they care for their patients deeply.”Anything that they could do to help their patients suffer as little impact as possible from an outage like this was really remarkable to see.”The WRHA’s infection prevention and control team was also brought in to ensure staff were maintaining appropriate hygiene standards under the conditions while still caring for patients. In the meantime, the crews there to fix the break arranged a supply to keep the boilers going and ensure there was heat in the building. Seven Oaks is the main hub for the Manitoba Renal Program for kidney health and a major centre for dialysis services in the province.Fortunately the break happened at night, after most dialysis treatments for the day were finished, Sanchez said.And because dialysis isn’t typically offered on Sunday, there were no appointments to cancel that day. Instead, staff spent the day arranging for patients with Monday appointments to go to other sites, Sanchez said.“We brought a bunch of staff in to work with our patients [on Monday] … to get them their care at other sites and … make sure that they got the dialysis they desperately would need.”Seven Oaks has “a partial ability” to provide dialysis with the water flowing once again, but those treatments require specialty water systems, so the amount that can be done in limited, Sanchez said.”Our teams are are working very closely with other organizations, like HSC [Health Sciences Centre], to ensure that the patients receive the care that they need as we ramp up our service.”Patients scheduled for different matters are being contacted directly if their appointments are also affected by the situation.As of late Monday morning, the WRHA was still waiting to hear how much of the break has been fixed and what is required over the next 24 hours or so to determine what still needs to be mitigated before a return to normal service, Sanchez said.With files from Meaghan Ketcheson
Water main break impacts operations at Winnipeg’s Seven Oaks Hospital
