New technology that is moving patients out of hospitals more quickly and speeding up recovery is helping Winnipeg handle more spinal surgeries.

That’s according to Dr. Jay Toor, an orthopedic spine surgeon in Winnipeg who helped bring an instrumented navigated spine surgery program to Concordia Hospital last year.

“Worldwide, this is the best spine technology,” Toor said at a government news conference Friday announcing increased support for expanding spinal surgeries at Concordia Hospital.

“Surgeons across Canada … are being flown into Winnipeg to test this technology, to observe these surgeries.”

Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew announced $2.7 million Friday for Concordia to expand surgeries through 3D-imaging and precision guidance surgical systems it began using last June, primarily for elective procedures.

More than 40 per cent more spine surgeries done in Winnipeg last year compared with 2023 and 2019, respectively, according to the latest data from the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

About 42 of the surgeries last year were undertaken at Concordia, according to Dr. Ed Buchel, provincial surgery specialty lead with Shared Health. The goal is to raise that number to 75 annually.

Dr. Toor says the equipment performs a CT scan during surgery, allowing him to “essentially have X-ray vision inside the patient’s back, and I can now make tiny incisions just a centimetre long.”

“It’s a little bit of a time-consuming process, but allows me to not dissect away all that tissue and just place those screws directly through the skin and it saves that big dissection step,” he said.

One of the biggest impacts, Dr. Toor says, is that moderately complex cases that could have only been done at HSC’s spine clinic can now be handled at Concordia, alleviating pressure on Manitoba’s largest hospital.

“It’s had a lot of impact in terms of efficiency in our system,” he said. “For the patients themselves, they have less pain, they’re back to function earlier.”

Toor says traditional surgeries carry higher risks of complications, larger incisions and greater blood loss.

The new technology allows for minimally invasive surgeries that expedite recovery times, Toor says. Patients who would have otherwise been kept in hospital sometimes for weeks post-operation are now routinely discharged from Concordia the same day or the day after the procedure.

He thanked Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara for taking action after he recommended the addition of instrumented navigated spinal programming.

“Manitobans who have been living with chronic back pain are going to get that addressed … right here at Concordia Hospital,” the minister said at the announcement. “This is technology that really changes the game in terms of recovery.”

Shortly after taking office 2½ years ago, the NDP axed a program instituted by the Progressive Conservatives that sent patients out-of-province for surgeries because of Manitoba’s long wait times.

It was a short-term solution for pandemic-era disruptions and system-wide delays, the PCs said at the time.

Asagwara says the money spent sending patients elsewhere was more wisely spent building capacity in Manitoba.

The number of in-province spine surgeries did begin to tick up after the height of COVID-19. There were 721 spine surgeries done in 2019 in Winnipeg. That figure dropped to its lowest point, 616, in 2021. By the end of 2023, when the NDP took power, the number in the city rose to 722.

WRHA data suggests that figure rose to 907 in 2024 and 1,029 in Winnipeg last year — roughly 42 per cent more surgeries were done in the city in 2025 than the year before coronavirus upended health-care systems across the world.

Some patients say they’re still facing headaches trying to get surgery in-province or pre-approvals from Manitoba Health to go farther afield for procedures either not offered here or those with long wait times.

“This is great news, but it’s a couple years too late for me,” Marilyn Kereluk told CBC News after the Concordia announcement. “If this was their great plan all along then why in the meantime did they cancel out-of-province surgeries, leaving people to suffer?”

Kereluk, 65, was losing bladder control and could hardly walk. He was told he would remain in that state for another two years before getting surgery in Manitoba, so Kereluk’s surgeon formally recommended surgery in Fargo, N.S., in 2023.

The request was rejected after New Democrats were elected.

Out of desperation he spent $23,000 for surgery at a private clinic in Calgary that restored some of his mobility and improved his quality of life.

“Had I waited until now I would be in a wheelchair with no hope of ever recovering,” he said.

The expansion at Concordia is being managed through the HSC Manitoba Spine Clinic, another NDP initiative, announced in 2024 to help boost surgeries.

Carol Bigold was the first to get the minimally invasive surgery at Concordia last summer for sciatica, a condition that shot debilitating pain down her leg.

The recovery time was “amazing” and enabled her to resume an active lifestyle in months, she says.

“I was climbing a mountain at Christmas,” Bigold said at the news conference. “I am totally free of pain.”