White Coat Black Art 26:30 One town's fight to reinstate healthcare The town of Carberry, Man., is doing everything it can to keep its emergency room open, after it was forced to close in 2023. And so far, it's worked.
"We really said, 'You can't forget Carberry,'" Mayor Ray Muirhead told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman. "We weren't giving up.
We weren't sitting back hoping that Prairie Mountain Health would find us a doctor. We made sure that we were out there." Carberry, a town of fewer than 2,000 people, is one of many rural communities across Canada that has struggled to keep doctors, and seen its 10-bed emergency room closed for long stretches of time.
In 2024, CBC News reported numerous ER closures in British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, P.E.I.
and Manitoba, often linked to staff shortages. But in May, Muirhead stood next to Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew as they announced Carberry Health Centre's emergency room would reopen, thanks to a rotating staff of locum doctors, or substitutes. It has also since hired two full-time doctors.
It took a great deal of self-advocating from the entire community to revive what was once a thriving hospital, Muirhead says. And he believes the work is far from over. Reopening of Carberry emergency department 'light at the end of the tunnel': health advocate 'Disturbing' shortage of rural Manitoba doctors fuels calls for new recruitment approach The need The town of Carberry hit a crisis point when the Carberry Health Centr.