A dozen Fredericton doctors want province to green-light hybrid surgical suite

In a rare move, a dozen of Fredericton’s top doctors are speaking out, asking that the New Brunswick government green light a hybrid surgical suite - and the ability to fundraise for its equipment.

The city’s Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital has been undergoing renovations ever since the Brian Gallant government announced a $200 million expansion project in 2017.

Two years ago, doctors began advocating that one of the newly renovated spaces become a specialized surgical suite, or hybrid operating room. Those rooms give physicians the ability to do all kinds of surgeries and treatments, since it’s equipped with advanced imaging tools often making surgeries less invasive.

Dr. Jill Goodyear, president of the Physician Staff Organization, says the Chalmers Foundation has been willing to raise the money needed for the specialized equipment, but they haven’t been given the OK by the province.

“The room has been built, we've been in the room, we've walked around. But the plan was for the Chalmers Foundation to raise the money to put the equipment in there, which is quite expensive,” she said.

Goodyear says the equipment is also large, so it logistically makes sense to get it into the room before the rest of the renovations around the OR are complete. But fundraising, purchasing, and receiving the equipment could take a few more years, so doctors are hoping for approval sooner rather than later.

“We absolutely believe as a medical community that this resource, which is partly done, which we have potential funding for, which we are all saying we need, is impacting us,” she said. “So this impacts almost everybody who works in our hospital and therefore almost every patient that we see.”

In a statement issued by the 12 physicians, it said there is currently a six-week wait time for biopsies to diagnose cancers, and that this hybrid OR could help alleviate this type of wait.

But Health Minister Bruce Fitch told reporters Tuesday that he needs to ensure that it’s the best use of the space.

“There are a number of options that are available to us and we're just at this point in time saying, look, it's not now,” he said. “We need to continue to have strategic talks.”

He also said Saint John does more surgeries than Fredericton, so that would be the “logical” place to put the specialized OR.

“I've got doctors in every hospital that have asks, not just doctors, but RNs as well. I've got asks right across the province and this is why we're having a provincial approach to our equipment, to our capital budget, to our services,” he said.

Dr. Paula Keating, president of the N.B. Medical Society, supports the 12 physicians.

In a statement, she said the province has $1 billion surplus and that “seeking efficiencies and asking already overtaxed health-care personnel to do more with less is not a sustainable strategy.”

“This is a case of a project with the full support of physicians and clinical leadership, involving existing space that simply needs funding to be equipped,” she said. “Delaying these types of investments has negative impacts on patients in the form of longer wait times and poorer health outcomes.”

Goodyear says the delay worries physicians at the Chalmers. She says this plea isn’t political.

“We're left to assume a number of things. And one of those is what is the future of the surgical programs and the level of care that can be provided at our hospital,” she said.

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