Premier Wab Kinew was in Dauphin last week to mark the opening of a new CancerCare Manitoba (CCMB) space at the Dauphin Regional Health Centre (DRHC), which is providing an improved experience for patients and staff alike.
“Today’s announcement is about supporting this regional hospital, the health hub for this part of the Parkland region. It’s about ensuring that there’s more beds for people to be seen, more endoscopy services more CancerCare services,” Kinew said to those gathered at the Community Health Building boardroom. “But when we reduce all that to the base level and we ask ourselves what is this all about, this is about having more people in rural Manitoba - here’s our hope at the end of the day is that more people in rural Manitoba will hear those four magic words ‘you are cancer free.’ We want more families to be able to hear those words, to be able to spend more time with your loved ones and to be able to have a stronger healing journey through our health care system.”
The relocation of the hospital’s chemotherapy unit to the main floor provided the opportunity to construct a unit with five treatment bays which offer more space and more privacy, said Dr. Sri Navaratnam, president and chief executive officer of CancerCare Manitoba. The new unit also improves functionality through better nurse sight lines and enhanced medication preparation area and has two larger exam spaces.
“CancerCare Manitoba is always committed to quality and equitable care to all Manitobans, regardless of where they live or who they are. That is our promise. That is our commitment,” Navaratnam said. “So thank you for your support in making it happen.”
The new unit is already paying dividends according to front line works
“We’ve moved into this space a few weeks ago. It’s only been a few weeks, but we’ve had a lot of positive feedback from patients already, which is very encouraging,” said local physician Dr. Jason Reed, adding the number of cancer referrals to the local hospital has increase by 36 per cent since 2022. “We’re looking to further create additional inpatient and out patient capacity that won’t only benefit Dauphin, but the Parkland region as a whole.”
Improvements such as those being made at the DRHC are important, Dauphin MLA and Minister of Agriculture Ron Kostyshyn said, not only for the personal well-being of those living outside of the province’s major urban centres, but as an indication that they are not being overlooked by their government.
“People here in Dauphin and rural Manitoba work hard and deserve good quality health care that they need. Manitoba understand this,” he said. “We know how important it is to have timely, local access to health care.”
Even more capacity is coming as part of phase 2 of the renovation, which will result in a new endoscopy suite, which includes one new procedure room and six new spaces for pre-procedure preparation and post-procedure recovery. Once fully operational, up to 300 more endoscopies will be able to be performed at the DRHC annually, while also freeing up space in the facility’s operating rooms, increase surgical capacity.
Finally, phase 2 will see the addition of seven new medicine beds and two new general surgery beds on the second and third floors of the hospital and relocation of physiotherapy services from the basement to the third floor space previously occupied by the chemotherapy unit.
“We continue to look for ways to improve health care access and capacity within Prairie Mountain Health,” said the region’s CEO Brian Schoonbaert. “You can see there’s a bit of a domino effect here and it’s all great and we expect that this second phase will be done probably at the end of summer.”
Originally announced in 2021, the project had an initial budget of $5 million. The costs have since risen to $7.8 million mostly due to inflation and “ a commitment to seeing through an important investment here in the Parkland region, in the city of Dauphin,” Kinew said, adding, “our government has taken time to get things right.”
“We’re signaling to the front lines we’ve got your back, we’re going to continue leaning into investments like this one,” Kinew said. “And we are going to ensure that a strong future for health care in Manitoba includes strong rural health care in every region of the province.”
