'No wonder there is a crisis.' No end in sight with another weekend of ER closures, warnings in N.B.

SAINT JOHN -

There's no end in sight to emergency rooms cuts in New Brunswick this summer.

The final weekend in August saw a complete closure of Sackville Memorial Hospital’s emergency department.

The shutdown began at 4 p.m. on Friday and will end Monday at 8 a.m.

It comes after the hospital had its evening and overnight hours on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays cut earlier this June. 

The Horizon and Vitalité health authorities warned Friday of an extremely busy weekend ahead at all emergency departments around the province - especially Fredericton’s Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital, the Miramichi Regional Hospital, the Moncton Hospital, the Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont Hospital in Moncton, and Saint John Regional Hospital.

Vitalité says nearly 50 per cent of nursing positions inside the Campbellton hospital’s ER are vacant.

“We’ve seen more than 40 per cent of the nurses in the Saint John Regional ER leave this year,” says Green Party leader David Coon. “No wonder there is a crisis.”

“Successive governments have forced the ER’s to practice family medicine. Nobody can work that hard. It’s not possible.”

Hours were also cut earlier this summer at hospital emergency departments inside Perth-Andover’s Hôtel-Dieu of St. Joseph Hospital (closing daily at 6 p.m. and re-opening the next day at 8 a.m.) and the Oromocto Public Hospital (closing daily at 4 p.m. and re-opening the next day at 8 a.m.).

Earlier this month, the Upper River Valley Hospital in Waterville temporarily closed its labour and birth unit, while the Campbellton Regional Hospital took away 12 patient beds. Both hospitals say the steps were taken to direct more resources to their respective emergency departments.

Perth-Andover Mayor Marianne Ball says Horizon officials told residents that reductions inside their ER would end in September, but now, every indication is that restrictions will continue well into the fall.

“I’ve heard about people trying to get jobs at our hospital, but I’ve also heard they’ve been discouraged by the Horizon health people they’ve talked to and encouraged to go to a different hospital instead, or not being shown flexibility in hours.”

“So I don’t have a lot of confidence Horizon is working really hard to fill the positions at our hospital.”

Horizon Health did not respond to CTV’s request for comment.

In February 2020, New Brunswick’s then minority Progressive Conservative government reversed a decision to close six emergency rooms overnight. Several of the hospital ERs included in that initial plan have been the most targeted by this summer’s cuts.

The Department of Health did not respond to CTV”s request for comment.