Province to provide free hormone replacement therapy
The provincial government allocated $5.3 million to start the design and construction work for a long-awaited new personal care home in Arborg.
The Town of Arborg and the Municipality of Bifrost-Riverton began jointly advocating for a new PCH about 10 or so years ago, citing a need for more beds in the area, and both municipalities had submitted various proposals to former governments for approval. Arborg currently has a 40-bed PCH.
With the funding commitment outlined its Building One Manitoba: Budget 2025, the NDP is proceeding with a new 60-bed PCH for Arborg. The $5.3 million won’t cover the entire cost of constructing the new facility; it will cover the design work and the start of construction.
Provincial health minister Uzoma Asagwara told the Express the government is excited to get Arborg’s new facility underway.
“I know the community is very excited that this is finally moving forward, and I have to say as a government, we’re excited to move forward with our plans to build a new personal care home in Arborg. It makes sense for the community. It makes sense clinically,” said Asagwara last Friday. “We’ve assessed where we need to make investments, and Arborg is an obvious and important place to do so.”
A new model of PCH called the small-house model may be implemented in Arborg, said the minister.
The model consists of small groups of people sharing a single household that has its own dedicated kitchen, dining room and living room. Each person has his or her own private room. Public fundraising efforts for a new PCH in Stonewall notes a desire for a small-house model.
“It’s a very cool model. And it’s exciting because it’s a model that’s not common in Manitoba and a model that people have been asking for,” said Asagwara. “The $5.3 million that has been set aside [for Arborg] is to do that design work in the best way possible. And we’re going to engage with the community to get their input and get the construction work going.”
The NDP is looking at undertaking some sort of community consultation whereby it can hear directly from the Arborg and area community regarding the new PCH, they added, so that the government can deliver a PCH that best serves the area for generations to come. The government doesn’t want to “assume” that whatever may have been decided in the past regarding the design of the facility should go forward now.
“We’re looking for the best ways to hear directly from the community. We are a listening government and we value being able to hear from those who will be directly impacted by investments like this,” said Asagwara. “… people have been advocating for this and fighting for this [PCH] for many years, and we want to honour their advocacy.”
In addition to providing funding to build PCH capacity in the Interlake half of the Interlake-Eastern Regional Health Authority, the NDP is also providing $17.2 million for construction of a new PCH in Lac du Bonnet in the Eastern half of the health region. The Lac du Bonnet PCH had originally been announced by the NDP government in 2012, cancelled by the Conservative government in 2017 then re-announced by the Conservatives in 2023.
A few months after the NDP assumed power in the fall of 2023, it put all PCH plans on hold in order to undertake a review of the previous government’s projects and spending. In earlier interviews with the Express, Interlake-Gimli MLA Derek Johnson (PC) said his government had approved funding for the new Arborg PCH via the treasury board prior to the 2023 election and had questioned the NDP’s need to review PCHs.
Johnson said last Friday that the $.5.3 million in the NDP budget was already part of $15 million the former Conservative government had promised in 2023.
“This money is inclusive of what we had already committed,” said Johnson. “We announced in July 2023 that $15 million would be committed for the planning and design of three PCHs, including Arborg.”
The Express reached out to the Town of Arborg and the Municipality of Bifrost-Riverton for comment on the government’s approval of and $5.3 million funding commitment for the new 60-bed PCH.
Arborg mayor Peter Dueck said on Saturday that he’s waiting for a letter from the health ministry to inform the town of the next steps before he offers comment. The Municipality of Bifrost-Riverton did not respond by press time.
Other health highlights from Budget 2025:
The NDP ran on a platform that emphasized fixing the “chaos” in Manitoba’s health-care system that arose after funding cuts and facility closures.
In addition to having already added 1,255 net new health-care workers to the frontlines, the government has made a number of health-care commitments in its 2025 budget, which was released on March 20. It includes measures for rural areas as well as urban centres. Those commitments include the following:
- Investing $770 million for frontline health-care staff.
- Providing $500,000 to begin the consultation, design and first phase of construction of a new ER in Eriksdale. The initial design phase is scheduled for completion by July 2025.
- Providing annual funding for staffing and operating space at the Selkirk Regional Health Centre that will add 686 more hip and knee surgeries annually towards a goal of 800.
- Boosting funding to provide annual support for 30 acute care beds at Selkirk Regional Health Centre.
- Addressing rural diagnostic staffing shortages by creating for 20 new seats in the laboratory and x-ray technology program and 20 new seats in the medical laboratory technology program at Assiniboine College.
- Facilitating rural recruitment drives for licensed practical nurses by adding more rural training sites.
- Improving nurses’ work-life balance.
- Bringing nurses back into the public system by expanding the provincial travel nurse team and limiting the number of private agencies that can contract in Manitoba.
- Adding hundreds of flexible child-care spaces to hospitals in Winnipeg and Brandon to accommodate health-care workers.
- Adding 20 more residency seats for doctors to address the physician shortage.
- Providing ongoing funding to expand the University of Manitoba’s health campus to train more doctors.
- Retaining and recruiting paramedics through financial support for advanced care paramedic training and providing opportunities for career advancement, especially in the rural areas.
- Recruiting nurses and doctors to rural and northern Manitoba.
- Increasing surgical capacity and reducing wait lists.
- Adding more emergency room capacity to the health-care system as a whole and reducing pressure on existing ERs by re-opening the Victoria Hospital’s emergency room that was closed by the previous government in 2017.
- Investing in Indigenous health-care initiatives.
- Creating an Independent Seniors’ Advocate to ensure seniors have access to quality services.
- Supporting the unique health-care needs of women by re-opening a Mature Women’s Centre (at the Victoria Hospital) that was closed by the previous government.
- Providing free hormone replacement therapy.
The budget says the provincial government, in partnership with the federal government, committed $10 million in funding for free hormone-replacement therapy for menopause.
Menopause is a natural process that typically arises in the middle years of life and has a range of symptoms. It can also be medically induced by the surgical removal of both ovaries. For some women, the symptoms can be debilitating and continue for several years.
Minister Asagwara said the NDP government recognizes the need to enhance, protect and restore health services for women and others of all ages with specific needs, eliminating any barriers around reproductive health care. It would be up to each individual to decide whether or not they want to try HRT.
“As a government we want to make sure hormone replacement therapy is available to women and those who need it when they need it. It would be for a woman and her doctor or primary care provider to decide what the best time is for her to choose HRT and what kind of HRT could best meet her needs,” said Asagwara. “We want to make sure we make HRT as accessible as possible and free.”
Given the movement in America towards undermining women’s health-care needs and their agency over their own bodies, Asagwara said it’s important for the public to know that the Manitoba government stands with women.
“They have a government that believes in investing in women’s health care. We have to do better by women in this province and in this country, and invest in their health care in a way that shows we respect and understand their needs, especially when we see what’s happening south of us in this area of health care,” said the minister.
In addition to providing free HRT, Asagwara said the government intends to re-open the Mature Women’s Clinic because it was a vital resource that had the expertise to provide specialized care to women. The clinic will re-open in conjunction with the restored Victoria ER.
The province is expecting to launch the free HRT program sometime this month.
The government’s Building One Manitoba, Budget 2025 is available online. Visit gov.mb.ca
