MLA Megan Mitton organized Thursday’s public health care meeting at the Tantramar Civic Centre and set the tone by calling lack of access “unacceptable”

Memramcook-Tantramar MLA Megan Mitton opened Thursday night’s public meeting on health care by thanking senior officials from the Horizon Health Network for attending.

But she also made it clear, as she spoke for many of the approximately 400 people in the audience, that the health care system is in crisis.

“I’ll be the first to say that the lack of access to health care for many people in New Brunswick is completely unacceptable and sometimes it causes terrible outcomes,” Mitton said.

“I know there are people in this room, in our community, who are suffering because they don’t have access to health care and because, over time, our health-care system has been allowed to crumble.”

Last summer, Warktimes published government statistics revealing a steady rise in vacancies for family doctors in the province with official figures showing that nearly 74,000 New Brunswickers did not have a primary care provider such as a family doctor or nurse practitioner.

NB Health Link, the privately run agency responsible for providing access to health care for people without a primary care provider, has nearly 12,000 people on its waiting list in southeastern New Brunswick alone with 962 waitlisted in the Tantramar region.

At the same time, emergency room (ER) service at the Sackville Memorial Hospital is restricted to eight hours per day (8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) with many patients experiencing long wait times when the ER is open.

Positive steps

“There will be some things tonight that are positive,” Mitton acknowledged.

“We have secured $776,000 to go to the Tantramar primary care clinic,” she added.

“But that is not enough. That will not meet the needs of everyone in our community.”

She was referring to the clinic that operates three days a week in the building across the parking lot from Sackville’s hospital, but so far its primary care services are restricted to the patients of three Sackville doctors and a nurse practitioner who closed their practices last year.

“It’s scary,” Mitton said.

“I have people who come into my office. They don’t know where to go to get their prescriptions filled. They don’t have access to health care. They don’t know where to go and I’m really worried about the health outcomes as a result.”

More clinic services on the way

Richard Lemay, Horizon’s director of primary health care for the Moncton area

Richard Lemay, the Horizon official in charge of primary health care for the Moncton area, told the meeting that the $776,000 that Mitton mentioned will be spent expanding services at the Tantramar clinic.

He said a nurse practitioner will join the clinic in June to supplement the services of the two part-time doctors and two nurses who are already there.

“We’ve also posted a second nurse practitioner position,” he added, “so we’ll see if we have any luck in recruiting a second person.”

Lemay said Horizon plans to add six new positions to the clinic that he hopes will be filled by this summer.

They include a full-time dietician, full-time pharmacist, an administrator, patient navigator, a social worker and a part-time respiratory therapist.

He said Horizon is hoping to get money from the province to expand the clinic’s physical space so that it can hire additional staff in 2025/26 including a physiotherapist, occupational therapist, rehabilitation assistant, licensed counselling therapist, another administrator and a speech-language therapist.

“So, as you can see, there will be close to probably 20 people working in this clinic.”

Possible extension of ER hours

Christa Wheeler-Thorne, head administrator for both the Moncton Hospital and Sackville Memorial outlined tentative plans to extend ER hours to 10 p.m. in Sackville by the fall.

But she cautioned that the extra six hours would depend on Horizon’s success in recruiting more ER doctors.

When will I get a family doctor?

Sackville resident Heather Estabrooks asked a key question

During the public question period, Sackville resident Heather Estabrooks said she hasn’t had a family doctor or nurse practitioner for almost five years.

“I’m looking to have some sort of insight into when I could actually expect a physician or nurse practitioner for primary care,” she said as the audience applauded.

“That pretty much depends on how quickly we can recruit new people to come into our clinic,” Horizon’s Richard Lemay answered.

“It’s hard to predict, but we have a new nurse practitioner coming in June, so hopefully we can see more people, but it’s really hard to predict,” he said.

“I’d like to give you a more precise answer, but for now, it depends on how many new providers come to help us.”

“So, what should someone do if they haven’t had a doctor for five years and they need access to care?” MLA Megan Mitton asked.

“What should someone do if they need a prescription filled and they don’t have a doctor?”

“This is a hard one to answer,” said Ravneet Comstock, Horizon’s chief of family medicine for the Moncton area.

“I would like to say, ‘This is the number you call and here you can get the help you need,’ but I can’t say that and the majority of our province, I think unfortunately pretty much everywhere you go, this question is being asked,” she added.

Comstock said patients without doctors should knock on all the doors available including any walk-in clinics they can find and NB Health Link even though there’s a long waiting list.

“The other thing is, holding onto hope,” she continued.

“I really do believe that in the next few years, in the next few months, you’re going to see much more uptake at this clinic,” Comstock said, adding that as the Sackville clinic’s support staff grows, it will become more attractive for doctors to move here.

No real answer

When asked later what she thought of the answer she was given, Heather Estabrooks was blunt.

“The answer was really not an answer,” she said.

“My question was, ‘When could someone in my situation expect to be guaranteed some sort of primary care contact, whether it was a doctor or nurse practitioner,” Estabrooks added.

“The answer was, ‘We’re working on it,’ so there is no time frame.”

To listen to an audio recording of the meeting from CHMA 106.9 FM, click here.