Premier officially reopens Carberry ER

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This article was published 11/05/2024 (692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

CARBERRY — When the emergency room at Carberry Plains Health Centre closed last September because the community lost its doctor, the town’s mayor, Ray Muirhead, said everyone went into a panic mode.

“We were always used to having a doctor here, it was a given,” said Muirhead.

“So, we went to town as a council, as a health action committee and as members of the community to make our voices heard — we wanted our voices to be heard. We met with Premier (Wab) Kinew, he was then-opposition leader Kinew, the minister of health and several other dignitaries. We made it happen.”

What Muirhead made happen, he added, was the reopening of the hospital’s emergency department, which has been closed since Sept. 1, 2023.

Friday morning, outside the front entrance of the hospital, Muirhead stood alongside Kinew, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara, members of town council and several members and supporters of the North Cypress Langford Health Action Committee when the announcement was officially made by the premier.

“I’m just going to cut to the chase. We’re here to announce the reopening of the Carberry emergency department,” Kinew said, as a large crowd that had gathered for the event erupted in applause.

“We have seen firsthand now in the efforts to reopen your emergency department just how much effort and how much work comes from the grassroots. And it really is heart-warming and awe-inspiring to see those local efforts,” Kinew said.

“So today, we’re making an announcement, but this is your announcement. This is the people of Carberry’s announcement — you own this.”

Three new family physicians are coming from Brandon and Virden and have been hired to work on a rotating basis at the hospital, in the ER and to also provide care to residents in the community’s 36-bed long-term care facility.

Emergency services were available as of April 27, with Dr. Dave Maharaj, Dr. Zaheed Fashola and Dr. Klevis Iliriani seeing patients as of Thursday.

Iliriani took his medical training in Manitoba and has worked in the northern communities of Gillam and Leaf Rapids, and in southeastern Manitoba he saw patients in St. Pierre-Jolys and most recently in Notre Dame de Lourdes.

“I love working rurally,” Iliriani told the Sun. “And one of the reasons I really like the plan in Carberry is I get to know my patients and have the continuity of care.

“I can see patients in the ER, and then follow up with them in the clinic, as opposed to getting them back in the ER, because it’s kind of nice to track down what happened to them, how they did and what we can improve in the future. It’s all about comprehensive medicine,” Iliriani said.

The ER will be open 12 hours a day, which Iliriani said is a “good start.”

Iliriani’s home is in Ottawa, where he has a wife and a seven-month-old child. He has agreed to work two weeks at a time in Carberry with a plan to bring his family to Manitoba at “some point when I do longer stretches,” he said.

“I found an excellent community. The mayor was fully on board, and when we spoke in person, he told me about the project and I was sold because I found so much dedication from everybody involved. And it’s lovely to see.”

There are 21 health-care centres in the Prairie Mountain Health region. They all have open emergency departments, except for Melita, Shoal Lake and Winnipegosis.

Of the ERs that are open, some are closed on weekends or several days during the month, according to the PMH website, which posts all the ERs and hours of operation.

It wasn’t easy to get Carberry’s ER reopened, said Muirhead, and when asked by the Sun if it was the squeaky wheel that got the grease, he said yes.

“That’s how you get yourself on the map. I’m not saying we’re any better or any worse than any other community out there. But you have to get your name out there. And we were the squeaky wheel. We made it happen,” Muirhead said.

“For any other community out there, just keep that message going. This is not the same as it used to be. So, we have to really work at this and continue the momentum going forward.”

Asagwara said if there is a template that other communities can follow, it’s an “all-hands-on-deck approach.”

“We will work with everybody as a government who wants to work at improving health care and fixing health care in rural Manitoba,” Asagwara said.

“And so, building relationships is key, working together, bringing people to the table, listening to front-line voices and listening to community voices. Valuing them in how we develop plans for rural health care is fundamentally the approach that our government will continue to take, and how strengthening services looks in every community will be unique to that community.”

Communities are their own best advocates, said Prairie Mountain CEO Treena Slate, adding they are also best at selling what they have to offer to people, and being welcoming when they do arrive.

“We’ve been working very hard behind the scenes to support this initiative,” said Slate.

“Opening an emergency room isn’t just about having a physician. It’s about having the nursing staff, the allied health staff, the lab staff in place to support that. So, there has been much effort on our part to try to ensure that we have all the resources in place to support the emergency room opening, and it’s not easy,” she said.

The “ultimate goal,” Slate said, is to have a consistent physician in place in Carberry by the fall of 2024.

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