Province continues work to move long-term care patients out of crowded N.B. hospitals

New Brunswick Health Minister Bruce Fitch remains confident the critical state procedure put into place at two hospitals will help alleviate some of the health-care pressures.

The status will allow staff to move long-term care patients, who are waiting at the hospital, to nursing or special care homes first.

“Especially if you were medically discharged, meaning that you didn’t need any immediate medical attention, the people are given priority to move into the nursing homes or the long term care,” he said. “This will alleviate some of the backlog or congestion or the availability of beds and will allow people that are admitted through the emergency department to have a place to stay.”

The procedure was first introduced in Saint John on Jan. 4 and on Thursday the province put the same procedure in place at Fredericton’s Chalmers Hospital.

Fitch didn’t have exact numbers of how many patients have been moved so far, but said the work is underway.

“It’s changing all the time and with the hospitalist in the hospital, that’s happening every day so there’s targets that we’ve asked them to meet in the last little while and I know they were working towards 20 in the month of January and then more into February,” he said.

CTV News reached out to the New Brunswick Department of Social Development for more data including just how many patients have been moved. 

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.