Shawn Bailey
NDP talk health care for rural Manitobans
Rural health care was front and center as the Manitoba NDP unveiled its plan to repair any problems should the party form government in this fall’s general election.
NDP leader Wab Kinew unveiled the five-point plan at a news conference in Virden, last week, saying the platform, “delivers better health care and a brighter future to rural Manitoba.”
“The biggest challenge facing rural communities right now is health care,” Kinew said. “Brian Pallister and Heather Stefanson eroded rural health care for seven years, leaving rural families cut off from care and rural communities struggling to build a future. Our team is ready to fix that with common sense solutions that will deliver better health care and a brighter future for rural families and communities.”
The NDP plan would double the rural doctor recruitment fund Brian Pallister cut and bring more doctors, nurses and health care workers to rural communities, Kinew added, by addressing the closures of rural ERs and health care centres, health care staffing shortages, and dangerous wait times for emergency care.
More doctors in rural communities
The NDP plans to reinstate the rural physician recruitment fund cut by the Conservative government and then double it. More doctors in rural Manitoba will keep families healthier with better primary and emergency care, Kinew said. Restoring this fund will help recruit more doctors in rural areas, while taking the pressure off smaller communities that have been forced to fundraise for their health care, he added.
“We need to relook at the finances of the department and I think Shared Health was another layer of bureaucracy that was brought in and so let’s revisit that opportunity,” said Ron Kostyshyn, who is running for the NDP in the Dauphin constituency and attended last week’s announcement. “That’s not saying that Shared Health doesn’t have a spot, but according to my sources or what I’ve read in the paper $85 million has been allocated to Shared Health and I think we can definitely trim off some of the financial dollars and put it towards doctor recruitment.”
Shorter wait times for ambulances and better cell service
Kinew said the NDP will fill the paramedic staffing vacancies that grew under the current government by giving rural paramedics a new contract, paying them the same as Winnipeg paramedics and allowing Advanced Care Paramedics to work to their full scope of practice. Work will also be undertaken to improve cell service in rural communities so emergency calls do not get dropped.
More staff to keep rural health centres open
The NDP plans to keep ERs open by recruiting and retaining more diagnostic imaging and lab technologists by giving them a competitive deal, Kinew said, along with offering incentives to allied health professionals, nurses and nurse practitioners to work in rural communities.
“We’ve gone through some pretty big challenges, not only in Manitoba, but across Canada. But let’s move forward because with the status quo we’re moving backwards instead of forward. So what do you need? You need your doctors, you need your nurses, you need your paramedics, you need your medical experts to get this done,” Kostyshyn said.
Health technology to connect families with the best specialists
The NDP plan calls for equipping rural health care centres with technology to reduce patient transfers and connect rural families with the best specialists in the province. Kinew said the party will improve rural broadband to support this.
The care seniors need to stay healthy at home
The NDP plans to reimburse homecare workers properly for their mileage to help seniors age in place. The party will build more personal care home beds to keep seniors in their home communities and increase access to primary care in rural communities to keep seniors healthy.
The Manitoba NDP’s rural health care commitments are one part of their comprehensive plan to fix health care across the province, the local candidate said.
“We’ve all witnessed what’s transpired in the last number of years and I think the rural health care probably is the biggest sufferer in our health care system. And when we think about smaller communities such as the Grandview Hospital and the Roblin hospital and the Dauphin hospital, they all experienced some challenges,” Kostyshyn said. “So I think we need a serious, I guess, retake of what’s happened in our health care in the last number of years and I think Wab and our party have the right ideas.”
Kostyshyn added problems in the health care system are not going to be solved in the short term, but the time to start a rebuild is now.
“Definitely we need to have a revisit because we can’t continue on the path we’re on right now,” he said.
Mazier Bill on internet accountability passes in the House
Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa MP Dan Mazier took a step towards his goal of making Canadian internet suppliers more accountable with the passage of his private member’s bill in the House of Commons, last week.
Bill C-288, an Act to amend the Telecommunications Act, is meant to provide Canadians with transparent and accurate information regarding Internet speeds.
“I’ve heard so many Canadians, especially rural Canadians, tell me that they’re not getting the internet speeds they pay for,” said Mazier, who is the Conservative Shadow Minister for Rural Economic Development and Connectivity. “This is because the government has allowed internet companies to advertise speeds you may never receive.”
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On strike
Braving unseasonable weather, local members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada whose jobs were deemed nonessential, were on the picket lines last week as the union seeks a new contract with the Government of Canada.
Among other things the union is seeking wage increases and a deal on working remotely.
As the strike drags on across the country, the union is preparing to ramp up by moving picket lines to more “strategic locations.”
Schur put Ukrainian community at the forefront of his creative works
Danny Schur, an Ethelbert native who was a staunch promoter of the immigrant experience through his creative works, has died of brain cancer.
Schur was an avid composer and producer who was best known for honouring his heritage by putting the Ukrainian immigrant experience at the heart of his creations.
“I remember being 10 and praying at night thinking, ‘oh God why have You cursed me with wanting to be a composer.’ But shortly after that, thinking I really, really want to do musicals and in university, my composition teacher saying, ‘your songs really sound like Broadway songs’,” Schur told the Herald in an interview in 2000 as he was getting ready to stage his first musical, The Bridge.
Written and produced in its entirety by Schur and starring Manitoba talent such as Roblin’s Amber Fleury, The Bridge, marked Schur’s first step toward his dream of making Manitoba a centre for original musical productions.
The Bridge, which celebrated the 100th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada, was semi-autobiographical and an insiders look into the music industry.
Schur was best known for his composition and production of the musical Strike! in 2005, which told the story of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike from an immigrant’s perspective, in particular the Ukrainian community.
“People often ask me, ‘oh why did you choose to do a musical on the Winnipeg General Strike?’ Well it takes place during it, but it’s really about immigrant issues of 1919 that still apply today.”
Schur adapted Strike! for the big screen under the title Stand!, which, after many years of hard work and production, opened in September 2019 at the Toronto International Film Festival. Another noteable foray into film was Schur’s 2015 documentary, Made in Winnipeg: the Terry Sawchuk Origin Story.
During his upbringing in Ethelbert, Schur was exposed to the world of music taking piano and singing in the church choir before attending the University of Manitoba’s School of Music.
On top of his foray into the world of musicals, Schur worked with several high profile musicians and groups such as Chantal Kreviazuk, McMaster and James, and Doc Walker.
Schur received his cancer diagnosis late last year and died last Monday. He was 56 years old.
Parkland Ukrainian Family Fund gets a boost from founder
After launching the Parkland Ukrainian Family Fund with a $25,000 donation last year, Don Tarrant continued his strong support for the organization and the Ukrainian immigrants it sponsors with a further $25,000 gift last week.
When things began last March, Tarrant said the idea was that two or three families might come to the Parkland, fleeing the war in Ukraine.
That goal was realized quicky, he said, and the target was moved to 10 families. The fund is now sponsoring more than 30 families with more to come.
The group has scaled back its offer to new families but with the war now in its second year, more help is needed, Tarrant said.
“The fund still needs money to fulfill a commitment to the existing families, as well as to give some level of support to the new families arriving,” Tarrant said, explaining his motivation to make another substantial donation to the fund. “Probably the biggest component is the single mothers with children that are here. They’re going to need a bit more support beyond the 12 months. So it really was maybe geared towards shoring up the fund, as well as making sure that there is money coming in towards the unforeseen costs and helping these single mothers make it work going forward.”
The project has been a success, Tarrant said, with all of the newcomers expressing appreciation for the support and an affection for their new home. Most of the newcomers have found work and their children have settled nicely into school, Tarrant added.
“The people that are here are very, very happy to be here. They are setting down roots,” he said. “The very first ones that came in are actually making some purchases like vehicles and are looking to buy rather than rent housing. So I believe they are going to stay and I think that it’s a great use of the funds.”
And while the community has been good for the immigrants, the immigrants have been equally good for the community, Tarrant said.
“We’re looking at over 100 people that have come in. There’s places they just couldn’t fill jobs and the thing with that, business, when they can’t fill a job, then they look at starting to scale back hours. They look as possibly having to eventually shut down,” he said. “But if they start scaling back hours and people want to buy something, but they’re closed, they start to buy elsewhere out of Dauphin. So just the effect of having no people becomes very, very negative and snowballs.”
Tarrant encourages anyone who is able to continue to support the Parkland Ukrainian Family Fund with a donation.
MPs gather residents for a conversation on crime
Two federal legislators were in Dauphin last week for a conversation about crime.
Specifically, Dauphin-Swan River-Neepawa MP Dan Mazier and Kamloops-Thompson-Cariboo MP Frank Caputo were in town to highlight two private member’s bills focused on bail reform.
“We’re going to have a conversation around bail reform, what that actually means and what we as legislators, as MPs can do and how Parliament works,” Mazier told the crowd before introducing Caputo, who is a member of the Standing Committee for Justice and Human Rights, as well as a former Crown prosecutor, parole officer and a former instructor at Thompson Rivers University Faculty of Law.
“So he has a wealth of knowledge.”
Crime is a problem across the country, Caputo said, and there are no easy answers.
“I’ll tell you right now we can’t fix this overnight,” he said. “Sometimes when difficult things happen in the community, when we have matters that are unsustainable . . . when the toothpaste comes out of the tube it doesn’t go back in as quickly as it came out. This is a complex problem that we’re talking about today, so I’m not going to stand before you and put my integrity on the line by saying I have all the answers because I don’t.”
Violent crime has increased by 32 per cent since 2015, Caputo said, while gang-related murders have doubled in the same time frame. And while those kinds of crime have historically been associated with large urban centres, they are becoming more common in smaller communities such as Dauphin, Caputo said.
“And that makes it difficult because number one, we’re not used to it, but number two, we don’t always have the resources or the knowledge to tackle these things,” he said.
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Agreement clears way for development
For the three parties involved, there is hope the signing of a special document Apr. 14 at Dauphin City Hall is a milestone in a long, prosperous and respectful relationship.
Minegoziibe Anishinabe (Pine Creek First Nation), Ka Ka Kwe Ke Je Ong (Ebb and Flow First Nation) and the City of Dauphin entered into a Municipal Development and Services Agreement centered on Anishinaabe Aki, a piece of land located on Main Street South in Dauphin.
The agreement outlines the services the city will provide for a fee to the land and clears the way for the parcel to receive reserve status through the Addition to Reserve process.
“It’s certainly a milestone in this process where we re-establish ourselves as the original people in this territory and partake in some of the economic opportunities that present when we decide to work together in a peaceful way,” said Minegoziibe Anishinabe Chief Derek Nepinak, “We are the safe keepers of the treaty. The Treaty 2 and 4 people that are represented here in the room, we will work to maintain that harmony and that peace that we agreed to many, many, many generations ago. I believe that this agreement is an expression of that commitment. This is the living treaty that we’re talking about now and I believe that there’s prosperity on the horizon for all of us. I think it is going to benefit everybody once this land is converted. The city is going to prosper, we’re going to bring new prosperity to our communities together and the treaty will move forward for the next generations in that way. So today is a milestone. It’s not so much the pen to paper that counts, it’s the spirit that we take from this and it’s the spirit that we work within as we move forward in the development of the site.”
Discussions surrounding the agreement began in December 2019 and Ka Ka Kwe Ke Je Ong Chief Wayne Desjarlais said the process, as well as the Addition to Reserve process, has been a positive one.
“I think it’s been positive throughout for everybody that’s involved, the two First Nations and the City of Dauphin. You know we’ve had issues with many different topics throughout our lives, but with reconciliation, it’s very important that we work with the towns and cities, the urban areas that we’re joined to,” Desjarlais said, adding the two First Nations will be signing papers with the government in Winnipeg in the near future to finalize the Addition to Reserve process.
“Obviously, before we can do Additions to Reserve, we need to make sure that everybody’s on board including the municipality, the City of Dauphin. So this service agreement affirms that everyone’s on board, which is a major hurdle for a lot of processes,” Nepinak added “I’m very happy that everybody’s in line and we can now get this across the finish line.”
Dauphin mayor David Bosiak said it is an honour to be a signatory to the agreement, but he credits past municipal leaders and City staff for forging this important new partnership.
“I personally believe very strongly in relationships and relationship building and I think that this first historic step for us as a City in developing these new relationships with your two communities are truly instrumental in us moving forward for our current generation, but for the future,” he said.
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Prairie Mountain Health releases new five-year plan
Prairie Mountain Health (PMH) has a new five-year Strategic Plan. The 2023-28 Strategic Plan outlines a “high-level vision” to help guide the organization in the coming years.
The strategic road map identifies PMH’s four priorities aimed at building a healthier population and creating a quality, integrated and sustainable health system.
PMH board chair Lon Cullen said the strategic plan, which officially took effect Apr. 1, is a compilation of many months of consultations, statistical analyses and both internal and external input.
“We are essentially building upon our extensive community engagement processes that assisted with the completion of our comprehensive 2019 Community Health Assessment,” Cullen said. “I thank all staff, managers, physicians, as well as our consultation groups for their input.”
PMH chief executive officer Brian Schoonbaert said the board is responsible to ensure that an adequate process has been put in place to inform the development of the strategic plan and to provide final approval.
“This is our road map of where we are, where we are going and how we will get there. It defines who we are, lists strategic goals to achieve our priorities and provides a solid foundation for decision-making,” he said. “Throughout the process, we built alignment with Manitoba’s continued provincial health system transformation and the implementation of Manitoba’s Clinical and Preventive Services Plan. Routine engagement with our board, leadership and staff is integral to take action and evaluate whether we are achieving our goals.”
The four strategic priorities listed within the new plan are:
• Positive health care experience for Manitobans with a focus on quality health services;
• Improved health system capacity, performance and accountability;
• Empowered, adaptable and high-performing workforce; and
• Strengthened fiscal sustainability and value for money.
The plan identifies several specific goals that are aligned with each strategic priority. Operational strategies will be implemented as resources allow and annual status reports will be produced to describe the health region’s progress regarding each strategic priority.
Under the positive health care experience the plan calls for:
• Engagement with clients, families,and community partners, including underserved populations, to deliver targeted services based on need;
• Increased public awareness of services;
• Improved client safety and outcomes;
• Enhanced programs and approaches to improve self-management of chronic conditions; and
• Support for quality of life and mental, physical, and spiritual wellness in all programs.
When it comes to an improved health system, the plan calls for:
• Improved access to services and reduced wait times;
• Allocation of appropriate human resources considering client needs and staff workloads;
• Facilitating access to appropriate space, equipment and technology for clients and staff;
• Improved internal and external communication and collaboration;
• Improved consistency and efficiency of regional policies, procedures, and guidelines; and
• Optimization of service delivery models and capital infrastructure.
When it comes to the region’s workforce, the strategic document outlines priorities such as:
• Expanded content, delivery methods and support for staff orientation and education;
• Development and implementation of anti-racism initiatives;
• Enhanced leadership training, mentorship opportunities and succession planning;
• Building upon recruitment and retention initiatives;
• Supporting providers to work within their full scope of practice;
• Engaging with staff as partners in improvement and change activities;
• Strengthening morale and mental well-being; and
• Reinforcing physical safety and security measures.
Finally when it comes to the fiscal side of things, the plan sets out:
• Ensuring financial management training and accountability processes are in place;
• Including financial impact analysis and opportunities for cost savings in improvement project prioritization;
• Engaging with community partners to develop shared delivery models;
• Pursuing staff input on potential efficiencies and cost savings;
• Evaluating program outcomes and return on investment; and
• Strengthening the culture of continuous improvement.
Main Street South project delayed by landowner agreements
Unforeseen issues are threatening to delay the start of the Main Street South reconstruction project.
The city needs to purchase land to construct its drainage structures prior to the project kicking off, mayor David Bosiak said.
“There are still details that we still have to work on as a community to finalize a landowner agreement, which gets us ready for the actual construction, which has to be tendered really, really soon,” Bosiak said, adding he discussed the matter with Manitoba Infrastructure and Transportation (MIT) Minister Doyle Piwniuk and Municipal Relations Minister Andrew Smith at the Association of Manitoba Municipalities convention, last week.
“So we’re behind the eight ball on a couple of issues related to that, but it sounded like the province was willing to discuss possibly helping.”
The original plan called for a project extending over two construction seasons with the bulk of the construction work taking place in year one and the finishing touches being added early in the second year.
“The initial plan was to have this tendered probably by now or by April, so that construction would begin in June, go through the summer and have most of the work done before freeze up in the fall,” Bosiak said. “And then have the contractors return next May or June to finish paving so that all would be complete by the summer games.”
While that remains the plan at this point, Bosiak said unless there is some movement soon, there is a chance the schedule will shift.
“We’re just risking that the final paving and painting and everything that needs to be done to finish it will probably be occurring later into spring and summer of next year. Maybe it doesn’t make us look as beautiful for the summer games, but the project is not in jeopardy. It’s just a timing thing,” he said.
Having worked for the provincial government, Bosiak understands that projects involving the province can move slowly as they work through the checks and balances to ensure no one is unfairly benefitting personally or professionally because of the contract.
“All of those checks and balances do have a tendency to slow things down. Because this is a project that involves MIT, there’s provincial jurisdiction, as well, and that is the complicated part,” he said, adding he hopes things will progress steadily now that he has been able to make the ministers aware of the situation.
“They’re saying, ‘you get your stuff done, we’ll get our stuff done and everything will be good.’”
Green bin collection start pushed back
Leave your green bins safely tucked away for the time being.
The City of Dauphin has delayed the start of the 2023 yard waste collection program for two weeks. The program is now slated to begin the week of Apr. 24.
“With the cold, most people wouldn’t have anything (to pick up), so it’s kind of a waste of resources for this first week,” director of Pubic Works and Operations Mike VanAlstyne said. “So it will pick up on Apr. 25 and we’ll resume normal collection, assuming the snow is gone by then.”
VanAlstyne added plans are coming together for the City’s annual Spring Cleanup Campaign, which is set to begin the week of May 15.
Crews will make one pass through the city starting in the Day 1 area on the waste schedule and progress through the regular four-day cycle.
Crews will only be collecting accumulated garden waste, grass clippings, leaves and shrubs and tree branches less than six inches in diameter and a maximum of eight feet in length. They must be piled parallel.
Items must be free of household waste, hazardous waste and recyclable materials. They must be in a clearly identifiable pile or packaged in biodegradable bags or boxes. Crews will not sort through the items.
The spring clean-up campaign will occur in back lanes. Those residences that do not have a back lane can place items on the boulevard near the curb. Large equipment will be used so it’s important to place the items close to the lane or curb to avoid property damage.
Yard waste bins will still be collected at the curb every two weeks. Compost material can be dropped off anytime at the Dauphin Waste Disposal site.
If you require a yard waste bin or more information, contact the City Shop at 204-622-3202.