The president of the New Brunswick Medical Society says more centralized medical services could be a way to get ahead of staffing shortages in the province’s health-care facilities.
“If we have a systematic approach to providing healthcare in the province, putting resources where they need to be, hopefully we can prevent these things from happening in the future as we run into these human resources issues going forward,” said Dr. Chris Goodyear.
Last week, the Campbellton Regional Hospital announced it was shutting down three departments for a week in the face of an extreme overcrowding problem, that saw the 145 bed hospital running up to 40 people over capacity.
READ MORE: Emergency department at Campbellton Regional Hospital resumes full service
When speaking to reporters about the hospital, Health Minister Ted Flemming said the government will be looking to “rationalize” the health-care system, centralizing some services to deal with staffing issues experienced across the province.
“We have 22 hospitals and in those hospitals 20 of them have a lab. We’ve got 20 labs in New Brunswick and we don’t have enough lab technicians,” Flemming said on Wednesday.
“If you go to a facility and have your blood taken, what you want to know is your cholesterol, you’re blood sugar and the usual things that they do. What does it matter that that isn’t done in one or two centralized areas. One for Vitalité one for Horizon for example.”
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Goodyear says the province needs to be innovative when it comes to health care, and centralization is just one piece that could help maintain healthcare delivery for New Brunswick’s rapidly aging population.
“Certainly we need to take a very innovative approach to health care. We are seeing our aging demographic and these are presenting huge challenges in terms of how we’re providing care,” Goodyear said.
“If we don’t take steps to remedy this, again, we’re going to find ourselves with services being shut down anyways because of human resource issues.”
READ MORE: ‘Exceptional measures’ at Campbellton Regional Hospital after ‘unprecedented’ patient overload
Goodyear says that any changes to the health-care system must be done carefully, and hopes the medical society is given a seat at the table to help ensure patients are being protected.
“We have to make sure that that change is going to maintain the current healthcare they have now, but I think there’s actually plenty opportunity to enhance the healthcare they have now,” he said.
“That’s why we need to be at the table have these discussions with government.”
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