New Brunswick communities on emergency room watch as service cuts increase

SAINT JOHN -

New Brunswick communities are watching with worry as service reductions increase inside smaller emergency rooms.

Emergency Room hours were cut this month at the Sackville Memorial Hospital and Oromocto Public Hospital.

The Horizon Health Network says the reductions in Sackville and Oromocto are 'temporary' and will remain in place until more health care professionals can be hired.

Perth-Andover Mayor Marianne Bell says officials at her village’s hospital are preparing for what they expect to be a difficult summer.

“They’re expecting a bad crunch on nurses in July and quite likely they won’t be able to sustain all the services we currently have,” says Bell.

The Horizon Health Network will not confirm if more cuts are coming.

The health authority says it has hired 106 nursing graduates this year, against the 650 current nursing vacancies within its hospital system.

Oromocto Mayor Bob Powell says summer vacations may be exacerbating the province’s long-standing staff shortage issue.

“You know they’re worked over the limit,” says Powell. “Now, it’s summertime and time (for them) to take their holidays. So when they take the holidays, there’s nobody to backfill them.”

Horizon says it’s ramping up recruitment efforts at both the national and international levels. Bell says encouraging medical professionals to stay in the region once they’re recruited should be a focus as well.

“The staff who come here don’t always know how secure their job is, whether the job that they have will be pulled or moved to another location,” says Bell.

In February 2020, New Brunswick’s then minority Progressive Conservative government reversed a decision to close emergency rooms overnight in Caraquet, Grand Falls, Sackville, Sainte-Anne-de-Kent, Sussex, and Perth-Andover.