N.B., federal government sign $430M health-care, long-term care agreements

The federal government will spend more than $430 million on the New Brunswick health-care and long-term care systems due to two new bilateral agreements.

According to a news release from Health Canada, New Brunswick and the federal government signed the Working Together and the Aging with Dignity agreements on Tuesday.

The release says the Working Together agreement will provide more than $313 million to support New Brunswick’s three-year action plan to improve the health-care system, including more availability of primary care, recruitment initiatives, and expanded mental health services.

“There are many areas of common ground that we’re operating from, so what we did is we set a framework within that to say provinces understand, what works here in New Brunswick isn’t going to be working in Alberta, right?" said Mark Holland, federal minister of health, at a press conference on Tuesday. "The solutions that are needed here are not going to be the same in other provinces or territories, so there’s enormous flexibility inside of these plans.

“There are really two things that we asked. One that any federal money going in we can actually see exactly what specific difference that is doing, so this concept of demonstrating that incremental spend. The second piece, and this is huge, is having common indicators so that we can, every year, have a report from every province and territory on the same indicators across an entire system so you can see how we’re moving against that progress.”

The Aging with Dignity agreement will give nearly $117 million to the province’s five-year plan to help people in long-term care, including improvements to palliative care, strengthening the workforce, and increasing safety measures.

"Part of that whole discussion on the workplace and the safety and having enough people on the shift to make sure that you’re not short staffed, that’s where that retention comes into play," said New Brunswick Health Minister Bruce Fitch. "When we took over in (2018), there was about 888 RN students; last count there was 1,689 so we’ve almost doubled the number of students going through the system.

"UNB Saint John has actually reduced the number of years to three as opposed to a four-year degree, so having the international recruitment, having the recruitment throughout Canada and also having more students, we’ll make sure that there are an appropriate number of people."

In a separate news release, Prince Edward Island announced it had signed a bilateral agreement with the federal government to received $29 million for long-term care over five years.

“Health care is top of mind for Islanders, especially our seniors," said Lawrence MacAulay, federal minister of agriculture and agri-food, in the release. "This new agreement will make a real difference in our province by helping ensure Island seniors have access to high-quality care, when and where they need it.”

P.E.I. signed a $94 million bilateral agreement on health care last December.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.