A local man is suing the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority and two hospitals after he suffered brain damage when he had to wait hours for treatment.

Lawyer Martin Pollock is alleging that last September his client Gerald Briggs, 50, had a massive stroke in the waiting room of Winnipeg's Health Sciences Centre.

"This was an evolving stroke. He needed immediate assistance. The stroke team was not called," said Pollock.

Briggs' wife drove him to HSC, after first taking him to Misericordia Community Hospital. He was losing feeling on one side of his body and had slurred speech. A triage nurse allegedly told Briggs' wife to drive him to HSC and he was never put in an ambulance, which is part of the reason Misericordia is also named in the statement of claim, along with HSC.

Briggs allegedly waited five hours at HSC before getting any sort of treatment. When he got treatment, it was an EKG of his heart, but according a statement of claim, it should have been a CT scan of his brain.

Briggs got a CT scan a couple of hours later, after the hospital allegedly realized they mistakenly gave him the wrong test.

"Early intervention was the standard of care, and he had not received that intervention and so as he was evolving through the stroke, there's greater neurological damage that's occurring," said Pollock.

According to Pollock, Briggs now has permanent brain damage and will likely never work again.

Conservative health critic Myrna Driedger calls this another gross failure of critical care.

She pointed towards the case of Brian Sinclair who died two years ago in the HSC emergency room after waiting 34 hours for care.

"The (provincial) minister of health had committed to fixing the problems that led to his death so obviously we're seeing now where she has grossly failed in her ability to do that," said Driedger.

Health Minister Theresa Oswald would not speak with CTV News on Wednesday.

The WRHA wouldn't speak on camera but said it launched a critical incident review as a result of the case and is in the process of implementing what it's calling communication and process recommendations. As a result, it won't comment directly on the pending lawsuit.

The Briggs family asked for privacy and also wouldn't speak on camera.

But, the family is going forward with its lawsuit and is also suing the province and some nurses for negligence. The family is looking to recoup loss of income, medical care costs and any potential losses as well.

- with a report from CTV's Laura Lowe