FREDERICTON – Some Fredericton doctors are asking that the provincial government stop pitting an expansion of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital against Fredericton’s Downtown Community Health Centre.
When the new Liberal government took power last fall, Health Minister Victor Boudreau took the $3.9 million slated for the DECH, and moved it to the health centre.
“We’re saying that this year, it’s not moving forward, because the decision was made to move forward with a new community health centre here in Fredericton,” Boudreau said in the legislature last Wednesday.
But Obstetrician Peter Landau says doctors, nurses, and the health authority have spoken out about their priorities before, but no one is listening.
“The number one priority for us is the hospital expansion, not the downtown clinic. Despite the minister saying it is the downtown clinic,” he said.
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It’s not the first time plans have changed. Doctors say they’ve seen expansions in 2002 and 2007 end up in smoke. Now, the frustration is growing, says surgeon Chris Goodyear.
“A lot of the staff that treat patients at the hospital sort of feel like Charlie Brown. Every time we go to kick that football, Lucy pulls it away,” said Goodyear.
“We’ve been down this road before. People have put time and money and effort into this expansion of the hospital, only to see it pulled back away from us when we get to the point of ‘Okay, let’s get this on paper and get it done.’”
Scott Robertson is a family doctor, and president of the medical staff at the DECH.
“There’s been talk of expansion for 20 years. And plans have been delayed again and again and again.”
In October, plans were made to move forward with renovations to the Chalmers. The 40-year-old building would see an expansion into the back parking lot. It would create space in the crowded building that sees 170,000 patients a year.
Goodyear says the hospital wasn’t built for the volume of patients and the level of care they get now. A decade or two ago, patients would be admitted for sugery a day or two before the procedure. Now, 90 per cent of patients are admitted the same day.
“Patients come in and out of the hospital, there’s a very high turnover rate. And again our facilities aren’t geared towards that.”
Now, the $3.9 million budgeted for the expansion has been shifted to build a new space for the city’s health centre. The centre is working out of a temporary space at the Centennial building downtown – and Robertson says they should stay there another year.
“We’re not saying don’t do it, we’re saying take that $4 million that you wanted to get started on for a brand new facility and let us move to the next phase of getting the architects going. Give them their $4 million the next year. But they can do what needs to be done right now for another year in the temporary facility.”
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