Emergency room wait times were up at some Winnipeg hospitals last month, including at Grace Hospital, where a new emergency department opened in May.

Manitoba Nurses Union president Darlene Jackson says nurses are stretched thin, and she believes rushed consolidation is to blame for that.

“Patients are now required to travel further to access that care and the options for getting to the care, the access points, are getting fewer and fewer, so that is definitely increasing wait times and it’s stretching nurses,” says Jackson.

Krista Williams, Chief Health Operations Officer for the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority, says there are several factors to attribute to the increase at Grace, including: more people attending the emergency department, staff needing to get used to the new building, and staffing vacancies related to nurse practitioners.

Williams says those vacancies have been filled and she expects the Grace ER to be back on track next month.

According to a WRHA report, the median wait time region-wide in July was 1.60, up from 1.57 in June, and 1.43 last June. Still, Williams says it’s important to look over the years, saying there have been improvements since 2015/16, and pointing to a 16 per cent decrease in wait times from 2016/17 to 2017/18.

Williams is confident strategies hospitals have in place will result in further progress.

New Manitoba health minister Cameron Friesen characterizes the increase in July as a blip, not a trend.

“I’d say let’s watch these numbers to see where they are a month from now, two months from now. I have already spoken to the WRHA senior administration. I’ve asked them for an explanation of where we are at right now and they assure me that efforts are being undertaken on an ongoing basis to continue to make sure that we move in the right direction,” says Friesen.

The goal for wait times is to reach the Canadian Institute for Health Information national average of 1.1 hours.

The province and WRHA are in the middle of major health care system changes in Winnipeg. Phase one was carried out last October; phase two is yet to come; by the end of it, Winnipeg will have three emergency departments – down from six – and two urgent care centres.

Jackson says the MNU frequently spoke out about phase one, calling it rushed with little ground work done. She says, as an organization, they’d like to see consolidation stop, but if that’s not going to happen they want the government to pause and bring nurses to the planning table.

Williams says phase two is a critical piece in being able to see the true benefits of the health system overhaul and improvements in wait times.