Candace Derksen

Ongoing resource challenges have led Southern Health-Sante Sud to temporarily reduce the Emergency Department's hours of operation at Morris General Hospital. 

Effective Monday, May 15th the ER will be open 7 days a week from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. 

In an email notification, Southern Health-Sante Sud says these changes are necessary to ensure this facility can continue to provide the best level of care possible.

Expect to hear peak levels of excitement coming from the Winkler Aquatic Centre this summer as one of the facility's thrilling features makes its highly anticipated return. 

A few years after the pool's two speed slides were decommissioned because they no longer met code, their replacements are being installed this week and readied for the new season. 

The Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU) at Boundary Trails Health Centre (BTHC) is proving to be an effective doctor recruitment tool.
    
Two of the program's three recent graduates will be setting up their practice at the Menzies Medical Centre in Morden. They are Dr. Jen Holmberg and Dr. Carrie Ginter. 

"(It's) super super exciting," said Patti Rach, program assistant at the CTU. 

The Red River is peaking at several points in southern Manitoba.
    
According to Fisaha Unduche, Executive Director for Manitoba Transportation and Infrastructure's Hydrologic Forecasting and Water Management centre, snow melt is essentially complete in most basins, with run-off and flows having peaked and on the decline. The exception, however, is the Red River.

Anticipation is building as the finishing touches get put on plans for the $100 million multi-phase expansion to Boundary Trails Health Centre (BTHC).
    
A recent open house offered the public the first real chance to see how the new buildings will fit in on the campus, and what the renovations to the current hospital will look like. 

Warm, windy days are starting to dry out fields in the Red River Valley, and Dennis Lange with Manitoba Agriculture expects seeding to get going in the next 10 days or so.
    
He says the season is starting out similar to last year with seeding pushed back a week or two.

While river flooding is shaping up to be a non-event this spring, seasonal run-off has resulted in significant damage in some spots throughout the Municipality of Rhineland.

"Some of the snow didn't melt as fast and some ditches were filled and the snow didn't flow, so we had some road washouts and some drains that got eroded and certainly filled with debris," reported Reeve Don Wiebe. In total, about 30 sites were damaged and are currently being assessed. 

Despite a delay caused by record snowfall during the Winter of 2022, the soap stock relocation effort at the Altona/Rhineland Landfill has finished ahead of schedule. Work started in 2021 and wrapped up before the March 2024 deadline. 

"All of the soap stock has been relocated," said Public Works Manager Clint Derksen. "We just have a little bit of tidying up on the site where it went to."

The 17,421,040 kgs of industrial waste was moved from two small cells, where it had been stored for decades, into an old cell within the landfill's clay keyway.

Anticipation is growing among students and staff at Plum Coulee School as a years-long effort to replace the playground finally starts to take shape. 
    
On Wednesday, May 3rd, volunteers will gather to erect the first phase of the new structure, worth $65,000.

"The kids are interested and eager," said Principal Mary Eberling Penner. "I'm sure once the big backhoe comes next week to level the land and the trailers come and start removing, and they start seeing things happening instead of just a snowbank [...], then the buzz starts to happen."

A driver was brought to hospital last night after their vehicle crashed into a building in Carman.
    
According to the Carman-Dufferin Fire Department's social media, fire fighters, paramedics and RCMP All responded to the call at 9:15 p.m. The building sustained extensive damages.
    
While on the scene, the department was alerted to a hydro pole on fire on Centre Avenue. Fire fighters put out the flames.