N.B. Health Council publishes health spending data

The New Brunswick Health Council has created a web page that highlights money spent on health care services in the province compared to the rest of the country.

According to the council’s website, New Brunswick spent $7,683 per person, per capita on health-care in 2020 — which is below the national average of $8,021.

New Brunswick ranks second lowest in the country for health care spending.

New Brunswick Health Council CEO Stéphane Robichaud said there's always been an interest in understanding more about health care spending.

"Spending in health care is a very difficult thing to measure because it's not captured very well within the system and it requires a lot of work to validate and standardize," Robichaud said.

The goal of the website is to make it easy for people to know how much money is being spent by the province and by New Brunswick residents on health-related needs.

Health care spending is made up of public sector and private sector funding, such as donations. The provincial government spent $6.02 billion dollars on health in 2020.

The information for the page comes from 2020 data, which is the most recent data available from the Canadian Health Information Institute. The council's goal is to update and publish new health data when available.

Robichaud said that health care performance is not necessarily tied to spending dollars, but that ensuring consistent access to information about health spending may help improve the health system.

The council CEO also said that New Brunswick is facing staffing pressure as more and more health-care professionals retire.

“We will not be able to replace everyone that's retiring," he said, noting that health care is a “people business.”

"We've also known for decades that we have to change our models, that they're not sustainable. So I think this type of information can play a critical role in better understanding how resources are currently being used.”

The New Brunswick Health council is a crown corporation that receives funding from the Department of Health and provides public reports on New Brunswick's health care system. It also engages with residents on how to improve provincial health services.

New Brunswick Medical Society president Dr. Michèle Michaud called the new health spending page a useful tool that provides valuable insight on the costs of delivering health-care and how the province compares to the rest of Canada.

“This kind of transparency is important, and we look forward to the addition of further data and information related to health human resources in the future,” Michaud said in a statement to CTV News.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.