Steinbach MLA, Kelvin Goertzen, is once again pressing the NDP government to get construction started on the long delayed Emergency Room expansion at Bethesda Hospital, a project which was announced nearly four years ago.
“The delays have passed the point of ridiculous already,” said Goertzen. “It’s long past time that this project gets going and gets completed. It’s critical to the community, to patients and to medical staff at Bethesda.”
Goertzen noted that the repeated delays would almost be comical if it weren’t such a serious project in need of completion. He says there are no excuses which justify this kind of delay noting that the Empire State Building was planned and built in 27 months and it’s expected the Winnipeg Stadium will take about 30 months from start to finish. By the time it’s done, the Steinbach ER expansion will have taken longer than those two projects combined.
“There has been an incredible will shown by the Bethesda Foundation in fundraising for this project. The will they have shown needs to be matched by some political will by the NDP government,” said Goertzen.
Last spring the NDP Health Minister vowed that the project would be underway by the fall of 2010. With that deadline long past, Goertzen has written directly to Premier Greg Selinger asking that the project move ahead immediately.
“The Premier needs to step up and get this project moving. The old saying, ‘better late than never comes to mind,’ but I don’t think anybody expected it to be this late,” said Goertzen.
