Consultations about New Brunswick’s health-care system are to begin this week in Sackville, one of the communities front and centre when reforms were originally tabled — then shelved — more than one year ago.
Ron Aiken, the town’s acting mayor, acknowledges change is needed.
“The needs are great,” he tells Global News. “I mean, we know the system isn’t working very well, and the status quo isn’t an option.”
“I guess our take-home message is that we want Sackville to, and this would apply to other hospitals as well, to become more of a community health-care centre with expanded services,” he says.
Aiken says that means more services like surgeries, acute care beds and diagnostic units. That would help alleviate the workload at bigger, urban hospitals, he says.
The first “engagement session” takes place virtually Thursday, March 4 at 6:30 p.m. in Sackville. Fourteen other communities are also scheduled for consultations by the end of April.
The province eventually changed course on its initial plans for reform after uproar from the communities, politicians and some health-care professionals.
On Feb. 17, 2020, Premier Blaine Higgs stressed that the initial implementation of the plan had not been “well thought out” and that it lacked support in rural areas of the province.
But people are hoping things will be different this time, including Sussex Mayor Marc Thorne.
“I think that the minister this year is going about it just right,” he says.
Thorne says he’s been reassured that local overnight emergency room closures aren’t part of the plan this time around.
“I’m very pleased that I’ve received confirmation that our ERs are going to remain open 24/7.”
Thorne acknowledges the challenges with recruitment and retention, but suggests one way to enhance services is to build off the Family Medicine New Brunswick model, grouping together physicians at clinics.
“The old style of solo-practice doctors who took on large patient loads, that is not a model that is sustainable in the future,” he says. “They want to take time to have a personal life, time to raise families, time to have to themselves.
“There’s plenty of opportunity, I think, for reforms to be introduced that will make us more sustainable, but yet, also beyond the money, make us better.”
Caraquet’s mayor, Kevin Haché, who ran for the New Brunswick Tories in the 2020 provincial election, says the town would be willing to put time and even money into its hospital.
But Haché says he’s just hoping for fair consultations.
“What’s important for me is that people feel comfortable if they have solutions to come out and say it, that the medical staff don’t feel muzzled, that they can actually say what they need to say,” he tells Global News. “Because I think a lot of the answers have to come from the inside.”
Both Haché and Aiken, Sackville’s acting mayor, say more local control over health care would help improve the system because each community is different.
“There’s no one-size-fits-all approach,” Haché says.
In a discussion paper announced ahead of consultations, the province said 30 per cent of hospital beds are taken by seniors waiting for long-term care beds.
Thirty-five per cent of family doctors and medical laboratory technicians are retiring within the next five years.
Forty per cent of nurses are in similar positions.
The province also says 90 per cent of the population has a family doctor, but only about half can get an appointment within five days.
Virtual engagement sessions take place Tuesdays and Thursdays, beginning with Sackville this Thursday, ending with Edmundston on April 27.
A full schedule and link to register can be found on the provincial website.
Results from the consultations will be considered in a five-year provincial health plan.
Health Minister Dorothy Shephard wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday.