COLUMN: Viewpoint – Manitoba women and health

The latest McKinsey Health Institute report says Canadian women spend 24 percent more time in poor health than men. Why? More women live in poverty, and don’t always have access to healthy food, safe living conditions, childcare, or reliable transportation that allows them to schedule regular medical appointments. There has been a history of medical professionals dismissing, minimizing, or misdiagnosing women’s symptoms often attributing them to psychological issues. Only seven percent of the national funding for medical research goes specifically to women’s health issues.

These and other factors have contributed to the existence of a huge gender health care gap in Canada. So it’s been great to see the current provincial government take positive steps to improve health services for women.

In October, 2024, Manitoba women gained full access to free birth control. This decreases the need for abortion, signficantly reduces women’s menstrual pain, and helps women plan their children so they can achieve academic, personal, career, and financial goals. Greater opportunities to meet those goals, leads to improved mental and physical health.

Recently, Manitoba became the first province that required employers to provide free menstrual supplies for employees. This ensures all women, regardless of their finances, will have access to the products they need, when they need them. Treating menstrual products as necessities, makes work places more inclusive, and reduces the stigma that can accompany women’s monthly periods.

Last year, Manitoba, in partnership with the federal government, announced they would cover the cost of hormone replacement therapy for women experiencing troubling menopause symptoms. Hormone replacement therapy also helps to reduce the effects of osteoporosis, something that impacts a much higher percentage of women than men.

In January of 2026, the very successful breast cancer screening program in our province was officially extended, lowering the age for self-referred, annual mammograms from 50 to 45. New technologists are being trained, and new equipment ordered, to implement this change. Women who have regular mammograms, significantly reduce their risk of dying from breast cancer.

Did you know that more women than men die of heart attack, stroke or other cardiac conditions each year? So it’s good news, particularly for women, that the latest provincial budget includes a $22.1 million investment to rebuild and expand cardiac care at Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Hospital. Eighteen new cardiac care beds are being added and faster testing and monitoring of patients is being implemented.

There have also been many recent improvements to services for Manitoba women surrounding pregnancy. The 2025 Safe Access to Abortion Services Act created a buffer zone around clinics, hospitals and pharmacies to prevent harassment of women accessing abortion services. The government also increased funding for abortion providers. In November of 2025 they restored financial support for lactation specialists and midwives that had been cut in 2018. And beginning in 2024 the Manitoba government doubled its fertility tax credit for couples seeking help in achieving a pregnancy.

Did you know 67 percent of nursing home residents in Manitoba are female? A recent provincial government announcement that they would invest an additional $5 million in better food in seniors’ care residences in the province, is good news for the many women living in those facilities.

Health care here in Manitoba still needs a great deal of improvement. We have a very long way to go before everyone receives the kind of care they want and need. Sometimes however, it is encouraging not to just look at what still has to be done, but what has been done. And when it comes to improving health care for women, the current government has taken many positive steps that are worth noting.