“There is work being done,” N.B. health minister responds after Horizon CEO turns to Twitter

FREDERICTON – New Brunswick’s hospitals are becoming more and more crowded and this complaint is coming from the very top.

Horizon Health CEO John McGarry took to Twitter over the long weekend to voice his concerns about congestion at provincial hospitals.

McGarry wrote that the Horizon Health Network called for government to look at the overcrowding issue back in January. He said hospitals need help dealing with long-term and alternative-level of care patients.

“What will it take?” McGarry wrote.

McGarry’s words are echoed as patient complaints stack up. In Fredericton this past weekend, Chuck Healy lived a parent’s nightmare. His daughter was in a car accident, and together they waited at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton for hours.

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“We were triaged pretty quickly, within about five minutes, and then we sat for six hours,” said Healy.

While they waited, Healy says only one ambulance arrived, bumping them down the list. He tried to speak to a nurse, but she wasn’t able to do anything.

“I said, ‘These girls have been in a traumatic rollover accident, and they need to see a doctor.'”

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But instead, Healy was just told he had to wait.

Part of the problem is the hospital is full with long-term and alternative-level of care patients. Mostly seniors, these are patients that could be served in a nursing home.

But N.B. Medical Society CEO Anthony Knight says there aren’t enough beds.

“When you look at the number of nursing home beds for people over the age of 75, New Brunswick is well below the national average. In fact we need about 350 more nursing home beds just to get up to the national average,” said Knight.

Health minister Victor Boudreau said Wednesday he wished McGarry would have raised the issue directly with him.

“I would have preferred he pick up the phone and call me if he had concerns on this,” he said.

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“He has a job to do, I have a job to do, I think at the end of the day we both want what’s best for the seniors of the province of New Brunswick.”

Boudreau says the province is working on the issue.

“The department of health is involved, the department of social development is involved. We have been reaching out to stakeholders. We had a meeting with the nursing home association just last week. So there is work being done.”