The Manitoba Government announced this morning the steps they are taking to help relieve the surgical and diagnostic backlog from the delays due to the pandemic.

Among the announcements made by Health Minister Audrey Gordon today were:

• Improvements to expand the Concordia Hospital in Winnipeg which will increase surgery capacity by up to 1,000 more surgeries per year.
• An investment of $400,000 to increase the number of assessments completed by the Spine Assessment Clinic at Winnipeg’s Health Sciences Centre
• The purchase and installation of a new mobile CT Unit and two new mobile MRI units in Winnipeg that'll add more than 11,600 CT scans and 7,200 MRIs annually
• The expansion of services at Misericordia’s cataract program

Minister Gordon also announced that the pilot project for Spine surgeries in North Dakota is underway and so far nine Manitobans have received their surgery with many additional scheduled in the coming weeks.

These improvements and expansions will help with over 1,000 extra surgeries in the province but are not expected to be in place until the end of the year.

For more on the announcement, you can find the full release on the Governments website here.