N.B.'s Horizon Health Network says they've 'planned far more diligently' for holiday season

Holiday and sick season are both here, but this year, New Brunswick’s Horizon Health Network insists it’s ready to take on the anticipated busy period ahead.

“This is often a very difficult time of year for our health-care providers and I want to make it clear that we have taken steps to ensure that we can effectively respond to these challenges by having the appropriate resources in place to meet the health care needs of New Brunswickers over these next few weeks,” said acting president Margaret Melanson.

The health authority is taking a number of steps to prepare for the demand, including:

• opening an additional 80 acute care beds in Saint John, Fredericton and Miramichi
• repurposing space at Fredericton's Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital to add more space for stable admitted patients
• working with health care, treatment and service centres to give people more options

“Within the Fredericton area, we now have the urgent care centre within the Brookside Mall, that is now open. It was not open last year. It will be open over the holiday period to be another option for patients who are seeking urgent care,” she said.

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“We have also engaged far more with our own community services so there’s been conversations with numbers of the physician offices, encouraging them to be open for certain days or hours over the holiday period to care for their own patients.”

Overall, Horizon insists it’s better equipped than it was last year.

“All our emergency departments will be open over the holiday season and we have undertaken quite extensive planning to ensure that we have staff available. In fact, in some cases we are over staffing to accommodate for any potential staff absences or unexpected illnesses,” said Melanson.

New Brunswick Nurses Union President Paula Doucet said the union worked with Horizon to ensure emergency departments in communities that needed the most support would be able to stay open like Miramichi.

“We’ve been told they’ve got an uptake of about 30 nurses that have put their hand up and are willing to go to the Miramichi to ensure that the ER services are opened and continue to be open over the holiday season,” she said.

This does provide more of a pinch for emergency rooms that might have seen support from these particular nurses, but Doucet says, since Miramichi is facing low staffing, high vacancy rates and no longer using travel nurse agencies, it was important to provide support to it specifically.

“I think it just shows the collaboration that we’re both willing to bring to the table to ensure that we can work together to help provide better services to New Brunswickers,” she said.

While it’s a positive step, especially for the holidays, officials say there is still a lot to be done in order to address some of New Brunswick’s large health-care problems like patients waiting for long-term care placements.

“Horizon’s hospitals continue to experience severe capacity challenges, compacted by the fact that as of today, 38 per cent of our acute care beds are occupied by patients waiting placements in a long-term care facility,” said Melanson.

She says these challenges require “immediate collaborative solutions.”

Meantime, Doucet says these plans in place are a step towards hopeful days ahead, but the province isn’t out of the woods yet.

“I’m hopeful that the numbers for recruitment are slowly increasing and I’m also hopeful that with the retention money our premier has just recently announced and put in place and extended it that anybody that takes a position within our province, within our health-care facilities, between now and December of 2025, they would be entitled to that money. So, I’m hoping that that also incentives nurses,” she said.

Dr. Lise Babin with the New Brunswick Medical Society said in an email to CTV News that it’s “encouraging to see Horizon announce a comprehensive plan to maintain service levels for their emergency departments, community health centres and additions and mental health services during this holiday season.”

She added that, “Increased staffing and the temporary addition of beds for alternate level of care patients should help mitigate the critical backlogs and service disruptions in hospitals this time last year.”

Babin does point out that it is a temporary fix and health stakeholders continue to work towards a permanent solution specifically for those waiting for LTC placements.

CTV News also reached out to Vitalité Health Network about its holiday plans, including emergency room hours and staffing.

No one was made available for an interview, but a spokesperson said they do not expect any closures at this time and that teams always have contingency plans in place to prevent any closures.

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.