Manitoba Tory government cuts funding promised by NDP to six health projects

The project was originally announced by former NDP premier Greg Selinger in January 2016 and supposed to help thousands of cancer patients in the province.. (Photo: Greg Selinger/ Facebook)

WINNIPEG –The Manitoba government has cut funding to a number of health-care projects, including a $300 million expansion to CancerCare Manitoba.

The project was originally announced by former NDP premier Greg Selinger in January 2016 and supposed to help thousands of cancer patients in the province.

But Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen says the Conservative government of Premier Brian Pallister has had to make choices to ensure that health care is sustainable today, five years from now and a decade in the future.

Goertzen says the NDP overspent and made promises it could not afford.

The cuts include the Lac Du Bonnet personal care home, the Thompson Northern Consultation Clinic, the St. Vital Primary Care Access Clinic, the St. Boniface Blood Bank, the Pas Primary Care Clinic, and the new CancerCare Manitoba facility.

NDP health critic Matt Weibe says the province is leaving Manitobans at risk.

“These are important projects that frankly the communities that they affect are counting on, and are critical investments in our future of health care in this province,” Weibe says.

Cancercare Manitoba says the new facility would have provided much needed space and equipment.

“When we moved into the existing building we were already out of capacity, so we really need that,” says Dr. Sri Navaratnam, president of CancerCare Manitoba.

The province says other projects like the new Pan Am Clinic, Concordia Wellness Centre and International Centre for Dignity and Palliative Care are still up in the air.

“This not a happy day for me as minister, because there isn’t a project that comes to this office that isn’t a good project,” Goertzen says.