Tuesday’s $25-million health-care investment announced by the New Brunswick government has come under fire from opposing MLAs for a pair of reasons: a lack of focus on achieving results and the use of an inappropriate location.
Premier Brian Gallant laid out a number of initiatives while pledging the funds including the hiring of more doctors, implementing a dementia strategy and adding transition beds to special care homes for use by hip and knee replacement patients.
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Opposition Health Critic Brian Macdonald isn’t swayed by the programs mentioned, of which details haven’t been made public, and says though they could be helpful to New Brunswickers, they aren’t the type of initiatives that would accomplish the stated goal.
“That announcement has nothing to do with wait times,” he said. “They’ve branded it as a wait times announcement, they’ve rolled out over 10 separate programs, all of which have merit but none of which address wait times.”
Green Party Leader David Coon concurred with Macdonald and expressed his concern over what he felt was a misguided funding announcement.
“It’s a very frustrating announcement because there is a pressing need to reduce wait times in our ERs to the point where patient safety is being put at risk in some cases,” Coon explained. “I saw nothing in the release or announcement in any way that would suggest that that’s going to happen, that what they’re proposing is going to actually have that impact.”
“This is what we’re getting these days,” he said.
“These announcements, these press releases where they throw everything that’s sort of vaguely related into a pot and then they roll it out and say, ‘Here you go.'”
Tuesday’s announcement took place at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital, a facility like many New Brunswick hospitals, that’s not a stranger to government funding announcements.
However, the commitment wasn’t made in one of the hospital’s public areas, rather in a trauma room, which caught the ire of critics for taking up valuable hospital resources, the very resources they’re pledging to increase and support.
“They shouldn’t be using a treatment room for a photo-op,” said Macdonald. “There are lots of places in a hospital to do a press conference and that’s an inappropriate use of government resources.
“Those resources are there to help New Brunswickers.”
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“At no time was anybody waiting or in any desperate need of that room,” said Deputy Premier Stephen Horsman.
Horsman took part in the announcement, introducing Gallant and another speaker.
He defended the use of the room as well as the still-to-be detailed initiatives aimed at improving hospital wait times, saying all money put toward improving residents’ lives will contribute to accomplishing that goal.
“I know it’s going to reduce wait times,” he said. “Having the Fredericton Medical Centre down here in Fredericton, that’s going to help reduce wait times. Everything we’re doing to improve the quality of health of all New Brunswickers is going to reduce the wait times.”