Carol Sanders
Carol Sanders is a legislature reporter at the Free Press who concentrates on provincial health policy and the politics around the health system. She covers how government decisions shape care on the ground, focusing on the biggest health and economic pressures facing the province and the political upheaval around them. With print reporting experience dating back to 1989 and continuous work at the Free Press since 1997, she brings long institutional memory to current health stories.
She began in print reporting at the Thunder Bay Chronicle-Journal before joining the Free Press as a copy editor and later returning to reporting in 2000. In early 2020 she moved into the legislature bureau and has since tracked the unfolding health and economic crisis through the lens of provincial politics. Her beat combines political reporting with detailed coverage of health services, infrastructure and regulation, giving her work a consistent focus on systems and accountability rather than lifestyle health.
Provincial health policy and political oversight
Sanders closely follows how ministers, opposition critics and senior officials manage health portfolios and respond to public pressure. She has reported on the Tory health critic’s frustration after being rebuffed by health officials, showing how political actors struggle to get information and influence operational decisions. Her coverage of nurse-to-patient ratios tracks government consideration of staffing standards, tying legislative discussions to frontline workload and patient care. In a feature on the health minister’s pledge to “deliver dignity,” she probes commitments to build personal care homes and create a seniors’ advocate, highlighting both policy promises and the weight of the portfolio.
Across these stories she maintains a steady focus on whether political oversight translates into tangible improvements in care and accountability.
Health system capacity and infrastructure
A defining strand of her work is scrutiny of the province’s health infrastructure and its ability to meet demand. She has repeatedly reported on the northern mobile MRI unit, first detailing delays that kept it grounded and later documenting its first move in 15 months, using the saga to illustrate gaps in access for northern communities.
Her coverage of Winnipeg’s $8.7-million detox centre, described by critics as a “high-priced drunk tank,” examines whether new facilities are meeting their stated protective-care goals or functioning as short-term holding spaces. In her feature on personal care homes, she links infrastructure plans to demographic pressures and the lived experience of seniors, tying bricks-and-mortar decisions to dignity and quality of life.
These stories show her preference for specific examples - machines, buildings, beds - as a way to make system capacity concrete.
Regulation, labour and access to care
Sanders reports extensively on the regulatory and labour forces that shape access to health services. She has covered the college that regulates physicians being overwhelmed by investigations, presenting the strain on professional oversight as a risk factor for timely discipline and public trust. Her reporting on the Dynacare lab services contract and strike follows the issue from an extended deal by the governing party, despite earlier criticism, through to labour action that threatens a logjam in lab testing.
In these pieces she tracks both contract politics and the practical consequences for patients waiting on tests, emphasizing how administrative decisions ripple into access and delays. She also warns about the implications of cross-border shopping for medical services, relaying doctors’ concerns that seeking care outside established systems can introduce continuity and safety issues.
This strand of her coverage treats regulators, unions and private providers as central actors in the health system, not just background detail.
Public health alerts and everyday impacts
Another recurring focus is public health alerts and how they intersect with travel, timekeeping and daily life.
She has reported on a hepatitis A outbreak and the efforts of health officials to contain it, framing the story around both epidemiological control and communication with the public. Her piece on a U.S. agency’s travel advisory for the province, and the response from the tourism agency saying it is business as usual, examines the tension between health risk messaging and economic interests in tourism. A related story on a travel advisory issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control sets out the reasons for the warning and what it means for residents and visitors.
She also covers the decision to stay on daylight time year-round, noting the health implications of abandoning seasonal clock changes and how experts weigh sleep and safety concerns against convenience. Across these alerts, she connects technical guidance to practical questions about work, travel and community routines.
Taken together, Sanders’s work is distinguished by its tight focus on the intersection of provincial politics and the health system, its scrutiny of infrastructure and regulation, and its attention to how large decisions affect daily care and risk. She writes in a straightforward news style grounded in specific facilities, contracts, ratios and advisories, making complex health policy legible through concrete stories.
4 more health journalists.
Alanna Smith
Alanna Smith is a national health reporter whose work links health policy and politics to real access to care, with a constant focus on health equity, infectious disease and the toxic drug crisis. She reports for The Globe and Mail on infectious diseases, hospitals and long-term care, mental health, drug policy and the pressures on health systems in Western Canada. Her stories connect big-picture decisions to patients, families, front-line workers and volunteers, showing how funding, privatization and federal standards shape public care. She has covered trauma care inequities, proposed public‑private models in Alberta, drug toxicity and overdose policy, respiratory virus surges, measles elimination, gene‑editing advances and gender‑affirming health care laws. Her work combines narrative reporting, data, legal and policy analysis, and has been recognized by national journalism and press freedom organizations.
Allan Levine
Allan Levine is a historian and author whose journalism uses the past to explain present-day issues. He writes for the Winnipeg Free Press, including the Now & Then column, which examines current events through history. His subjects include public health, disease, medical treatment, health systems, politics, social conflict, strikes, wars, antisemitism and Canadian public life. His polio reporting traces Manitoba epidemics, hospital pressures, treatment, mortality and the arrival of vaccines through archival data and medical history. He also writes about the Winnipeg General Strike and Jewish communities, including discrimination, rights and security. His work draws on books about Canadian political leaders, Jewish history and the wartime economy, including The Dollar A Year Men. He writes long-form, analytical pieces that combine dates, statistics, policy decisions and narrative storytelling to connect people and institutions with broader historical change.
Angela Amato
Angela Amato is a digital news producer with CTV News, and her coverage is distinct for linking health research and public safety concerns to legal and policy decisions that shape daily life. She reports on health, justice, politics, business, arts and culture, crime and public-interest stories. Her health work covers academic and clinical research, including studies on vaping and lung blood flow, exercise tolerance and early heart dysfunction in young adults. She also reports on motorcycle gang arrests, homicide and death investigations, Indigenous justice stories, wildfire evacuations, ambulance contracts, property taxes, labour negotiations and political advocacy rules. She explains complex findings in plain language and stays close to documents, data and expert sources. Her background includes investigative and daily newsrooms, and she has earned nominations for national journalism awards.
Apoorva Mandavilli
Apoorva Mandavilli covers the collision of infectious disease science, vaccine policy and public health agencies for The New York Times, following how research, regulation and politics shape outbreaks and access to vaccines. She reports on science and global health with a steady focus on infectious diseases and pandemics, including Covid-19, mpox, H.I.V., malaria and tuberculosis, treating them as ongoing global threats. Her work explains complex epidemiology and virology in clear narratives about risk, evidence and the consequences of scientific decisions. She repeatedly returns to vaccine policy, law and misinformation, tracing how court fights and agency disputes affect immunization schedules and public trust. She also reports on global health programs, funding cuts and inequity in care and technology. A longtime science journalist and former founding editor in chief of Spectrum, she has written widely on science and health and received major honors for medical science reporting and pandemic coverage.