To reduce emergency room referrals and help people access the appropriate level of health-care services they need, the provincial government is adding doctors to the Health Links – Info Santé health-advice telephone line.
Provincial Health, Seniors and Long-term Care Minister Uzoma Asagwara said in a Nov. 27 news release that by adding physicians to the telephone service, patients will have direct access to primary care.
“I know many Manitobans have had the experience of calling Health Links, only to be told to go wait for hours in an emergency room,” said Asagwara. “By adding physicians to the service, we’re giving patients direct access to primary care on the phone and helping to reduce unnecessary referrals to emergency care. It means more peace of mind for patients and less pressure on the health-care system.”
Health Links-Info Santé is a bilingual telephone health advice line that’s staffed by nurses and available 24-7 seven days a week. People can obtain guidance for non-emergency health issues. Depending on a patient’s clinical needs, the nurses may refer patients to their family doctor, a walk-in clinic, urgent care facility or emergency department.
Health Links–Info Santé receives on average 400 calls per day. Of those calls, an average of 40 patients are triaged to emergency departments each day, says the news release. In the first 10 days of the new physician service, 160 patients were transferred to speak with a doctor and only 10 of those patients were triaged to an emergency department.
Emergency room wait times in Winnipeg hospitals vary by site. St. Boniface’s ER, for instance, showed a wait time of over six hours as of 3 p.m. on Dec. 14, according to the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority’s online ER wait time schedule. By contrast, Health Sciences Centre’s adult ER had a wait time of under three hours. HSC’s children’s ER had a wait time of over five hours. Grace Hospital’s ER showed a wait time of six and a half hours.
CBC News reported last month that between 5 and 15 per cent of ER patients across the country left without being seen in 2024. Manitoba was the second-highest at 13 per cent that year.
During its election campaign in 2023, the now NDP government promised to re-open three hospital emergency rooms — at Seven Oaks, Concordia and Victoria hospitals — that had been closed and turned into urgent care centres by the previous Progressive Conservative government. The NDP said it will take eight years to get those three ERs reinstated. The Victoria Hospital’s ER is already in progress and scheduled to re-open in 2027. The NDP also promised to build a new ER for the Eriksdale hospital.
In the meantime, the government is trying to link patients to the appropriate level of care they need and help reduce overcrowding and long wait times in ERs.
In November a doctor was made available on the Health Links service from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. Another doctor is scheduled to join the service this month, which will provide physician availability overnight for 24-7 service.
The government said it also plans to add nurse practitioners to the telephone service and that if further medical assessment is necessary, NPs can transfer patients to a doctor.
People living in the city can call Health Links – Info Santé at 1-204-788-8200. People outside the city can call the service toll free at 1-888-315-9257.
