New health plan sparks optimism in New Brunswick

With health ministers seemingly joining together and new strategies on the table for health care across Canada, there is a sense of positivity in New Brunswick Friday.

“Anytime the federal government with provinces and territories agree on elements such as these, it’s a step in the right direction,” said Stéphane Robichaud, New Brunswick Health Council CEO.

“It ensures that we’re all rowing, or more of us are rowing, in the same direction.”

Coming out of the Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Health Ministers’ Meeting this week was a five part work plan.

One of the steps is strengthening and sharing standardized health data, which is expected to improve current barriers and also allow for better planning for future health workforce needs.

Robichaud says from the perspective of the New Brunswick Health Council, the focus on this data is extremely important.

“I think many citizens don’t realize that our health systems across the country have a very poor grasp on resources. So at a time when we’re speaking so much about human resources, the importance of recruitment, part of the strategy also needs to be on how we better utilize these resources and at the council this is one of the area we’ve been working on over the years and it’s the weak link of our health system,” he said.

Adding, “anything that helps us understand where the needs can be can help us from an education perspective, from a recruitment perspective, but also very importantly from a management perspective.”

Federal Health Minister Mark Holland also brought forward speeding up the process for international doctors to join Canada’s workforce and making it easier for doctors and nurses to work in different Canadian jurisdictions, which Robichaud cited as another positive aspect of the plan.

“It’s one of these things of eliminating a barrier that we should not have,” he said.

Another group that walked away from this year’s meeting feeling a sense of optimism was the New Brunswick Nurses Union.

“We were able to discuss with Minister Holland the main issues facing nurses across the country and I think he really heard the problems that nurses are facing from coast to coast to coast and he was very interested in how do we find solutions to our health care system,” said Paula Doucet, president of the New Brunswick Nurses Union.

She says the union had the opportunity to meet with Minister Holland and the Chief Nursing Officer for Canada on Wednesday, as well as hold a policy breakfast with all the ministers on Thursday morning.

Another item at the top of the priority list is the creation of a nursing retention tool kit.

“It’s about how do we put measures in place to respect the nurses that are there, support the nurses that are there, reduce their working stressers and give them some what of a work life home life balance, so those are big broad strokes that we hope to see addressed in that tool kit,” she said.

Adding that one of the biggest focuses has to be on retaining the most experienced nursing staff.

“We know right now efforts are being placed on internationally educated nurses and bringing in more and more folks to do the work in our health care system, however, if we don’t have the experienced staff and the expertise in the work place to mentor, orient and support new hires into our system, we’re setting them up to fail,” said Doucet.

She says, at the bare minimum, she left the meeting in P.E.I. feeling hopeful that the federal health minister has heard what nurses are facing and she’s calling it a positive step, at least for now.

“I think because the health ministers, both federal, provincial, territorial have heard the voice of nurses through their union presidents in every jurisdiction and this has become the priority for all jurisdictions, we are pleased with this outcome, however we also recognize there’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Doucet.

During the policy breakfast Thursday morning, she said the union had the chance to talk about other issues such as travel agency nurses, hours of work and retention of experienced and expert nurses in the system.

She says these are topics that still need to be addressed and fixed in New Brunswick.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.