More of the sickest patients in Westman will be able to receive critical care locally when they might have otherwise been transferred to hospital hours away in Winnipeg.

The Brandon Regional Health Centre’s new critical care centre is expected to begin accepting patients in May, when the first 12 of 16 planned intensive care unit beds come online. The other four will open once enough staff members have been hired, the province says.

“Our current ICU is dated. It’s small. It’s cramped. There’s very little privacy,” said Dr. Adrian Fung, chief medical officer for the Prairie Mountain Health region in western Manitoba.

“This is a large step forward, and it’s going to make a great deal of change, not just for our patients but for our staff who are caring for these patients.”

Health Minister Uzoma Asagwara also announced 15 of 30 new medicine beds will open now at the health centre, with the rest opening as staff vacancies are filled.

The province says the new critical care centre, additional medicine beds and a suite of in-patient services and infrastructure upgrades to the Brandon hospital cost about $120 million.

Asagwara says expanding critical care services will reduce the need to transfer some high-acuity patients to Winnipeg hospitals.

“I’ve heard loud and clear from when we first came into government that this was an issue we needed to address,” the minister said at the announcement in Brandon on Wednesday.

“It’s going to also help ensure that families can access care not only when they need it most, but where they need it most.”

The Tories committed $70 million in 2021 when they first announced the 30-medicine bed expansion, new critical care unit at the health centre and upgrades to the Western Manitoba Cancer Centre.

The NDP campaigned in 2023 on a core promise to improve health care. One of its pledges was to open several minor injury and illness clinics, including one in Brandon.

It opened in September 2024 and was the first such clinic for non-life-threatening health issues to open in Manitoba outside of Winnipeg.

Asagwara said Wednesday the Brandon minor injury clinic saw more than 10,000 patients in its first year in operation, “demonstrating the strong demand for that kind of care in this region.”

Prairie Mountain’s CEO, Treena Slate, says Brandon’s hospital has the only intensive care unit between Winnipeg and Regina. It is one of only four such units province-wide.

She called the critical care centre a “milestone” that will ensure more Westman patients can receive life-saving care closer to home.

“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the critical role this site plays in caring for patients across the region and beyond, and reinforced the need for expanded modern infrastructure,” Slate said.

“We’re moving from a very crowded 10-bed ICU with only three private rooms to a modern, 16-bed unit made up of entirely private rooms, many with their own bathrooms.”

Asked why the new 16-bed critical care unit will only have 12 to start, Asagwara suggested it wouldn’t be responsible to open all of them at once without adequate staffing.

Asagwara pointed to the latest record-setting cohort of nurses set to graduate in April from an ICU-training program, which has dedicated training seats for Brandon-based nurses, as a sign those remaining beds could open soon.

“The most responsible way to add capacity is to make sure that you’re doing it in a way where those beds are fully staffed … so that we’re not adding capacity and then forcing a scenario where you’re using overtime or mandating to staff those beds,” the minister said.

“We’ve worked really, really hard to make sure that we are now in Manitoba training more health-care workers than we ever have in the history of this province … and we are retaining and recruiting net new health-care workers in a way we have not.”