WINNIPEG – Manitoba Liberal Leader, Dougald Lamont, says the Pallister government’s newly announced health care transformation plan should be pronounced DOA – dead on arrival.

“When you strip away all the doublespeak and bureaucratic drivel, there is no substance to this plan at all,” said Lamont. “The only change that the PCs have introduced here is yet another layer of health care bureaucracy, all while Manitobans are losing health care services due to cuts, closures and layoffs.”

Manitoba Liberal Party Health Critic, Dr. Jon Gerrard, said that’s it very clear that the Pallister government is making it up as it goes along, cherry-picking recommendations at random from different reports and health care recommendations that sometimes contradict each other.

“The KPMG report criticized CancerCare Manitoba, and Pallister cancelled the needed expansion of a world-class cancer treatment facility, while today’s announcement says that CancerCare is a model for other services,” said Gerrard. “This is a clear example of a lack of communication and disorganization by this government.”

Pallister’s health reforms have not been about health at all, they have been about cutting costs, even if it means firing nurses, physiotherapists and health care aids, closing urgent care and access clinics, de-listing necessary services and denying patients access to life-saving drugs and devices, said Lamont.