When I arrived at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre last Tuesday morning, the emergency department waiting room told a story that statistics alone couldn’t capture. A man in his 60s sat hunched in a wheelchair, occasionally wincing with pain, his hospital bracelet indicating he’d been there since the previous afternoon. Nearby, a young mother tried to soothe her feverish toddler, her eyes heavy with exhaustion from what she told me had been a 7-hour wait.
“We’re basically running a ward in the waiting room,” whispered Maya, a veteran emergency nurse who agreed to speak with me if I changed her name to protect her job. “Some days I go home and cry because I know we’re not giving the care people deserve.”
The Health Sciences Centre, Manitoba’s largest hospital and the province’s major trauma center, has been operating at over 100% capacity for months, with recent internal documents obtained by CBC News showing occupancy rates regularly exceeding 130% in the emergency department.
What these numbers mean in human terms is what brought me here. The hospital’s ER was built to accommodate 56 patients but regularly holds more than 70. Hallway medicine—once considered a temporary emergency measure—has become the standard operating procedure.
“We’re treating critical patients in hallways because there’s nowhere else,” Maya explained, gesturing toward a corridor where beds lined both walls. “Privacy, dignity, infection control—all the standards we’re supposed to maintain go out the window when you’re this overcrowded.”
The Manitoba Nurses Union reports that its members are increasingly filing workplace safety reports, citing impossible patient loads that force them to provide care they consider unsafe. According to their latest survey, 87% of emergency nurses have considered leaving the profession entirely within the past year.
Dr. Candace Thomson, an emergency physician who agreed to speak on record, told me the situation has deteriorated significantly since the pandemic. “We’ve lost experienced staff who couldn’t handle the conditions anymore, and now we’re asking newer nurses to manage patient loads that would have been considered dangerous even five years ago.”
What makes this crisis particularly alarming is its persistence despite government promises to address healthcare shortages. In March, Manitoba Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara announced a $200 million healthcare staffing initiative, with particular focus on emergency departments. Four months later, frontline workers say the situation has only worsened.
“The money might be there, but where are the actual people?” asked Thomson. “You can’t materialize trained healthcare workers overnight, and we’re losing them faster than we can replace them.”
For patients, this translates to dangerous delays. Winnipeg resident Ellen Friesen shared her mother’s experience from two weeks ago: “Mom was having stroke symptoms, and despite arriving by ambulance, she waited four hours before seeing a doctor. The nurse kept apologizing, saying they were doing their best, but by then some of the damage was permanent.”
Health Sciences Centre administration declined multiple interview requests, but provided a statement acknowledging “significant capacity challenges” while citing ongoing recruitment efforts and a new 18-bed observation unit scheduled to open this fall.
Manitoba’s situation reflects a broader national emergency care crisis. The Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians recently called the state of emergency medicine across Canada “catastrophic,” with similar overcapacity situations reported from Victoria to Halifax.
Dr. Alika Lafontaine, president of the Canadian Medical Association, pointed to interconnected system failures when I spoke with him about Manitoba’s situation. “Emergency department overcrowding isn’t just an ER problem—it’s a whole system problem. When we lack adequate primary care, long-term care, home care, and mental health resources, everything funnels to the emergency department.”
Walking through the HSC emergency department, I noticed makeshift adaptations everywhere: converted storage rooms now housing patients, staff break rooms repurposed as treatment areas, and nurses using rolling carts as documentation stations because proper workspaces were occupied by patients.
What struck me most was the quiet determination of staff working within impossible constraints. A team huddled around a patient experiencing a mental health crisis in a high-traffic hallway, creating a human privacy screen while speaking in hushed tones. Elsewhere, a nurse sat on the floor next to an elderly patient’s stretcher, holding her hand while documenting vitals on a laptop balanced on her knees.
“We adapt because we have to,” said Maya, “but adaptation has limits, and we’re well past them.”
For Indigenous patients who travel from northern communities to access specialized care, the overcrowding creates additional barriers. Joseph Muskego, a health advocate from Norway House Cree Nation, expressed frustration about the domino effect these delays have on northern communities.
“When someone waits 12 hours in the ER, that might mean missing their flight home, which could mean waiting days for another medical transport,” Muskego explained. “This creates additional costs, separation from family supports, and interrupts continuation of care.”
As I left the emergency department after several hours of observation and interviews, paramedics were bringing in three more patients while the waiting room remained full. A nurse who had been there since the previous night’s shift was still working, having stayed to help during an especially busy period.
The Manitoba government faces difficult questions about sustainable solutions beyond temporary funding announcements. Without addressing systemic issues like primary care access, aged infrastructure, and working conditions driving healthcare professionals from the field, the crisis will likely persist.
For now, patients continue flowing through doors never designed to accommodate such numbers, while healthcare workers perform daily miracles with diminishing resources. As Maya put it before returning to her patients: “The system isn’t bending anymore—it’s broken. The question is whether we have the courage to actually fix it instead of just patching the cracks.”
