One by one, health care professionals spoke to a crowd at the Universite de Moncton on Tuesday, showing their displeasure to a proposed plan that would look to centralize some services.
Lab services employees were told in early June that plans to change services would come in three phases, with the first phase coming in the fall of 2023.
In a release to Global News, hospital staff were told the changes would look as follows:
“Phase 1 would consist of sending outpatient bloodwork from all the province’s hospitals to the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital in Fredericton and Chaleur Regional Hospital in Bathurst.
- Phase 2, whose timing has yet to be determined, would involve two major changes. The first would be the expansion of the microbiology laboratory at the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont UHC to become the provincial public health laboratory where
- Phase 3, which could be completed in 2026, would consist of centralizing all pathology-related services at the Moncton Hospital and Saint John Regional Hospital, including blood flow cytometry, in other words, tests related to treating cancers such as leukemia. There would be no further pathology tests detecting cancer at Vitalité Health Network despite the fact that the Dr. Léon-Richard Oncology Centre is part of Vitalité Health Network.”
In an email, the Department of Health pointed Global News to an August 2022 release that noted the system needed to be looked at to “ensure the sustainability of laboratory services.”
“We expect to be facing human resource challenges for laboratory medicine and we will likely also see an increased demand for testing,” said Health Minister Bruce Fitch in August 2022 in a release.
“We also know New Brunswick’s laboratories need to be better connected to provide improved turnaround times.”
The department said that samples are routinely moved around the province without issue, and that they’re meeting with stakeholders to discuss the issue.
“This kind of model is considered a best-practice and is in line with how systems operate in other jurisdictions,” said spokesperson Sean Hatchard in an email.
“Doctors are not losing access to laboratories inside local hospitals across the province. Testing will still be completed in local hospitals based on clinical need, and results will continue to be provided in a timely manner.”
Cardiologist Dr. Luc Cormier, who works out of Moncton, said that he was consulted on some of the proposed changes that could be put in place. He said that he didn’t feel he was listened to.
“Transferring tests to different hospitals should probably the exception and not the norm,” he said in a room crowded with Vitalité doctors.
“We do already have capabilities of running the tests and a lot of the labs in New Brunswick, at least the ones in Vitalité, have over the past few years streamlined a lot of processes.”
When asked, Liberal health care critic Rob McKee could not say whether or not his party would reverse the decision if his government came into power after the next election but said that the province should be listening to the doctors in the room.
“I’m just questioning whether or not the Department of Health is listening to the health care professionals,” he said.
Vitalité Health Network said that there had been no final decision on transferring services but did say that they will take concerns expressed by health care professionals into account.
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