New Brunswick’s Vitalité Health Network is responding to a troubling report by New Brunswick’s ombudswoman that included stories of psychiatric patients being kept in seclusion rooms and in restraints.
Among the 11 cases listed in Marie-France Pelletier’s report was a 2021 complaint from a patient at the Restigouche Hospital Centre, who described being alone on the floor of a seclusion room in his own urine and feces. It took staff 20 hours to clean up the waste.
“I’ve been troubled and saddened by some of what I’ve seen. Definitely these are situations that you’d hope wouldn’t happen,” Pelletier said Tuesday.
Pelletier’s investigation was prompted by 12 complaints from 11 families and patients at the Restigouche Hospital Centre, and was expanded in January 2023 to review the use of restraints in all psychiatric facilities across the province.
She said in her report that the practices are a result of collective failure of an entire system that is “under pressure.”
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On Wednesday, Sébastien Lagacé, Vitalité Mental Health and Addiction’s associate vice-president, said the cases were unacceptable.
“We do apologize for the situation that have happened to our patient,” said Lagacé.
“Like we said, this is not acceptable and it’s not anchored in our philosophy of care.”
The hospital has been the focus of major concerns surrounding neglect and abuse in the past, but Lagacé said they haven’t had an incident since 2023 and that it won’t happen again.
“We have developed and implemented the monitoring system to make sure that we know which patients, where they are in the hospital, and how long they’ve been under seclusion or mechanical restraint,” he said.
“I’m quite confident that the transformation that we started at the Restigouche is solid. We’ve seen a significant decrease of incidents.”
Pelletier made 21 recommendations, and promised to release annual reports on the progress made.
Moving forward, Lagacé said their main priority is reviewing policies on the use of restraints — to which they’re planning to make changes by next year.
He couldn’t provide a timeline on when they will complete all of the ombudswoman’s recommendations, but said the health network is working on most of them currently.
“During the investigation, every time the ombud met with us, they shared their observation, we applied immediately actions to remediate the situation,” said Lagacé.
Margaret Melanson, president of Horizon Health Network also said that authority accepted Pelletier’s recommendations.
“We will be undertaking a comprehensive review of the recommendations to develop a detailed action plan that will guide necessary improvements to our programs and processes,” she said in a statement.
“We value every opportunity to learn and are committed to continuously enhancing patient safety, care, and experience.”
— with files from The Canadian Press
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