The Doer government's first budget included a $135 million increase in health spending, taking total provincial spending to $2.43 billion. In October 2002, the government announced a long-anticipated $100 million expansion to the Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg, with new operating rooms and emergency departments. The government was unable to end "hallway medicine" in the six-month period it had promised during the 1999 election, and faced the problem of nursing vacancies in the early 2000s. Nevertheless, most observers agreed that the provincial situation improved significantly between 1999 and 2003. Health spending continued to increase during Doer's second term; a report in December 2004 indicated that Manitoba's per capita health spending was the highest in Canada for the seventh continuous year.