CT scanner operating in Dauphin next week

Starting next Wednesday, Dauphin and area residents will have access to a CT scanner in the region for the first time since the city’s hospital closed on Canada Day.

A trailer-based mobile CT scanner is currently being set up on the grounds of the Dauphin Regional Health Centre and will begin taking patients on Sept. 23, Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara told the Sun in an interview on Wednesday.

“We were originally told it was going to take many months to have CT up and running … We said that timeline was unacceptable,” Asagwara said.

Dauphin’s emergency department reopened on Sept. 7, after the hospital was forced to close on July 1 due to significant flooding in the area. Floodwaters damaged the hospital’s basement and the mechanical and electrical systems throughout the building. Prairie Mountain Health said at the time that repairs would take nine months to a year.

After a visit to Dauphin in mid-August, Premier Wab Kinew deemed the timeline “unacceptable” and delivered on his vow to open the temporary ER on Labour Day.

Asagwara said they’re thankful for the “team effort” that went into opening the emergency department.

“There’s nowhere else in Canada where there’s been such a rapid approach to restoring a critical service of that size in a community,” Asagwara said.

Meanwhile, health-care staff from Ste. Rose du Lac Hospital have said the reopening of the Dauphin hospital has left their team short-staffed, after additional ER staff from Dauphin left the hospital once theirs had opened.

Asagwara said the health ministry is in contact with physicians in Ste. Rose to address their concerns.

Asagwara also said they had spoken with PMH chief executive officer Treena Slate to discuss staff recruitment and retention in the region and made sure “the doctors that we are recruiting … are being prioritized for Ste. Rose du Lac and for Grandview in the Prairie Mountain Health region.”

Progressive Conservative health critic Kathleen Cook, in an interview with the Sun on Wednesday, praised the health-care workers from across the region for “really stepping up.”

Cook, the MLA for Roblin, was in Dauphin late last week, along with other members of the PC caucus. She said residents she spoke with were “very happy” to have an emergency department but had some concerns about accessing other departments in the hospital.

“Most of the people I spoke with in Dauphin are mostly concerned about being able to access diagnostic imaging, dialysis (and) surgeries at their regional hospital again,” Cook said.

“I had hoped to meet with Prairie Mountain Health to discuss the status of the hospital timeline, for getting services back online and the challenges that they’re facing in doing that,” she said. “Prairie Mountain Health put a stop to that.”

Cook said she contacted PMH in an email on Aug. 26 and the next day received a “one-line reply declining the meeting.”

She said she also tried to visit a personal care home in Dauphin, but that request was also denied.

Cook said PMH didn’t tell her why they declined the meeting, and that she learned from a media outlet that the health authority was “absolutely focused on getting the ER functional again.”

When asked to respond to Cook’s concerns about being denied access to facilities, Asagwara said when they were the health critic under the former PC government, they “were never extended those opportunities.”

“We should be thanking (PMH) instead of criticizing them when the community is in their time of need and when everybody is focused on taking a team Manitoba approach. I’m a bit stunned to not see the PCs and the critic also taking that team Manitoba approach,” Asagwara said.

“I found many ways to be effective in asking questions and getting information,” the minister said about their time as health critic.

“I encourage the health critic of today to do the same.”

PMH did not respond to questions about Cook’s denied access by print deadline.

On Tuesday, Janet Twerdoclib, vice-president of acute care and chief nursing officer for PMH, provided an email statement about the ongoing restoration to other parts of the hospital.

“Prairie Mountain Health and Shared Health have always indicated that the hospital’s return to full services would be completed in phases,” the statement said.

“Work is well underway on phase 2. This next phase will primarily prioritize resuming on-site CT scan procedures within the next month, as well as providing cancer care and dialysis services closer to home. Further phase 2 announcements are expected in the coming weeks,” the statement said.

Health-care professionals have praised the rapid return of some services to the Dauphin hospital.

A spokesperson for Doctors Manitoba said physicians have appreciated the consultation done by PMH and Shared Health.

“Physicians are quite pleased overall with the progress to restore services in Dauphin,” the spokesperson said in an email. “We deeply appreciate the true team effort to return emergency care to the patients of Dauphin.”

The Manitoba Association of Health Care Professionals also gave credit to Shared Health and the health authority for discussing priorities for the hospital with its members.

Jason Linklater, president of the union, said he’s not aware of any concerns that have been raised about the hospital at this point.

“Before the Labour Day reopening, they worked with us to identify concerns and deal with them in advance. Is that the reason why I haven’t heard concerns from members? I don’t know, but it’s a fact that exists at the moment,” he said.

“And that’s exactly how it should work.”

Linklater said he’s glad staff are back in the Dauphin hospital but added the government needs to do more when emergencies require staff to work in different facilities.

“In 2025 it was the northern wildfires, this summer it was floods, and both times people had to sort out, OK, travel, where to report, where they go, all in the middle of a crisis happening in their lives that they’re personally affected by as well,” Linklater said.

“What we were suggesting was that Manitoba needs a provincewide plan for deploying health-care workers in an emergency ready before the next one,” he said.

» rgerrard@brandonsun.com