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5 years on, Higgs still impatient for more health authority collaboration
Premier complains the 2 organizations are operating in isolation — but they say they’re making progress
Premier Blaine Higgs's on-and-off preoccupation with the province's two health authorities — and his desire to see them collaborate more — is on again.
Higgs has recently renewed complaints he has made intermittently since becoming premier in 2018 about the Horizon and Vitalité health networks operating in isolation.
He raised it in question period last month, raised it unprompted with reporters and also mentioned it in his state of the province speech in January.
"New Brunswickers will never have access to the health care they deserve as long as our two health authorities, Vitalité and Horizon, compete against each other," the premier said in the January speech.
A single, centralized provincial lab for non-urgent tests had been "attempted many times," he said, "but it's failed because of lack of co-operation."
But the premier's own health minister, and the two authorities themselves, say they're making progress on closer collaboration.
Health
Minister Bruce Fitch says plans are moving forward to create a single
entry point system, which will require collaboration between the
regional health authorities. (Roger Cosman//CBC)
Bruce Fitch said last week his budget includes funding to create "a single entry point" that will offer patients a choice of hospitals for surgery, allowing them to pick the one with the shortest wait time.
"People can go on that list and they can see, is it quicker to go the Miramichi?" Fitch told reporters, using the example of a regional hospital that often has shorter wait times.
"Same thing goes for MRIs. Is it quicker to go to Miramichi for a non-urgent MRI? So those are some of the things that we're working on in collaboration that will make it better overall."
Wait times for various procedures can vary dramatically from one hospital to another or even from one surgeon to another.
Giving a patient who is able to travel a choice of hospitals would shorten their wait and reduce the wait list at the hospital where they usually get care.
That already happens within each health authority. But Horizon and Vitalité did not provide any data that CBC News requested on how many patients have been able to move between the two authorities.
Dr.
France Desrosiers, CEO of Vitalité Health Network, says the health
authority aims to 'continue to build on our collaboration with Horizon
Health Network.' (Gilles Boudreau/Radio-Canada)
That kind of flexibility is precisely what Higgs was talking about in question period last month when he sounded off again — with a frustrated, impatient edge to his tone.
"We have to find a way for both Vitalité and Horizon to work together, build our health-care network together and deliver services, no matter where in the province," Higgs said.
"If you can't get it here in Fredericton, maybe you can get it in Bathurst. … If we are going to continue to pretend that we can isolate each other in our capacity, we will limit our ability to deliver the best service to the citizens of this province."
No one is actually arguing that the two authorities can, or should, operate in isolation — though Vitalité CEO Dr. France Desrosiers said any collaboration must respect "the autonomy and agility of each authority."
Horizon and Vitalité both say they are already working together in many ways.
The Saint John Heart Centre, for example, has long been operated by Horizon but serves patients provincewide from both health authorities, a model Higgs wants applied more widely.
In a statement, Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson said the two authorities are "in close communication every day."
Margaret Melanson, CEO of Horizon Health Network, says collaboration between the health authorities is already happening. (Horizon/Zoom)
She said that in Miramichi and northern New Brunswick, they work together to get patients access to X-rays, ultrasounds and MRIs at the hospital that can book them the soonest.
And in Moncton, she said, the two authorities co-operate in areas such as mental health, addiction and sexual assault examinations.
Desrosiers said they also collaborate there on other services, including ophthalmology, plastic surgery and vascular surgery.
"We aim to continue to build on our collaboration with Horizon Health Network and other healthcare stakeholders, in order to offer the best available care to all New Brunswickers," she wrote.
Premier unhappy with duplication
It's at least a partial realization of what Higgs has been pushing for since becoming premier.
Early in his tenure, he complained about duplication between the two health authorities, which were set up in 2008 to reflect New Brunswick's two linguistic communities.
His comments stirred fears among francophones that he might merge the two.
Horizon serves primarily English-speaking areas, and Vitalité serves French-speaking areas. While both are obligated by law to provide services in both languages, francophones see a health authority focused on their minority-language needs as a right.
The premier eventually ruled out a merger and instead pitched the centralization of particular services at particular hospitals to reduce duplication.
"So if I need an MRI, I'll go to this hospital, and if I need something else I'll go to your hospital," he said in November 2020.
The following year, he suggested that the combining of some services, particularly in Moncton, would help address the shortage of nurses overworked and burnt out by COVID-19 — an idea supported by the New Brunswick Nurses Union.
At the time, Higgs seemed content to let the health authorities sort out the details themselves, and the government's health plan, rolled out that fall, contained few specifics.
"I don't know how it's going to be proposed at the end of the day, but I'm just excited they're working on solutions to provide the service," he said in 2021.
"I'm not prescribing what that should look like."
CEO fired, boards replaced
By July 2022, however, the premier's impatience returned with a vengeance.
After a man died waiting for emergency care at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton, Higgs fired the CEO of Horizon, replaced his health minister and replaced the partly elected boards of the two health authorities with trustees.
"I'm prepared to do whatever is necessary to protect and improve the health-care system in our province," he declared.
The housecleaning led, a year later, to new, all-appointed health authority boards and a new structure called the Health System Collaboration Council, established to give a new impetus to the two organizations working together.
It's been operating since last summer, yet Higgs's question period comments last month, in response to Opposition Liberal Leader Susan Holt, implied there's still been little progress.
"Does she agree that our two health networks should be working hand in hand, both in French and English, to deliver better health care to the citizens of this province?" he asked.
"Does she agree with that, or does she agree that we should just stay in isolation?"
Left unsaid was that the premier has been raising that question throughout his five-plus years in office without, it appears, being able to resolve it.
Fitch was reluctant to comment on Higgs's remarks.
"I don't want to speculate on some of the words that the premier said," he told reporters.
"I know things move at different paces and folks want to see things happen faster sometimes. … I think that's where we are."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ethics czar erred in approving LeBlanc's use of Irving plane: Democracy Watch
'Given his immune system is compromised, his doctors determined that he could not travel commercial'
The Canadian Press · Posted: Jul 17, 2019 5:44 PM ADT
January 30, 2007
WITHOUT PREJUDICE
Mr. David Amos
Dear Mr. Amos:
This will acknowledge receipt of a copy of your e-mail of December 29,
2006 to Corporal Warren McBeath of the RCMP.
Because of the nature of the allegations made in your message, I have
taken the measure of forwarding a copy to Assistant Commissioner Steve
Graham of the RCMP “J” Division in Fredericton.
Sincerely,
Honourable Michael B. Murphy
Minister of Health
CM/cb
There was once a politician that promised near 100 times, as I recall, to eliminate first past the post in federal elections, getting my hopes up that finally we might see politicians reeled in, but alas couldn't get what he wanted.
You need to hold all politicians under the same microscope, all of them!
These are the mistakes made when governments are in charge of healthcare.
Governments always make decisions based upon political priorities, and not on health.
Mr. Robertson I certainly agree with that part of your post and that is where the inefficiency has always lied and not in the constitutionally guaranteed right to duality, which mandates delivery of equal services to all of our citizens, regardless of language. That successive Liberal and PC governments have deliberately failed in that sacred duty is a reflection of their willful incompetence and corruption in their service to corporations only and not citizens.
Those in the past who have held their noses and voted with their pensions in mind have led us to the mess we now enjoy.
Clearly, your priorities are NOT in line with qualityof healthcare in this Province.
I resemble that remark
and here is the "demand." There's always a demand.
And unless you are unconscious and it is an emergency situation; the surgeon does discuss the procedure prior to the surgery (eg cancer patient, hip replacement etc)....
I guess you are lucky enough to not have experienced such situations.
There are instructions prior to surgery, such as fasting to minimize the risk of regurgitation and having the patient choke on their own vomit. If the patient doesn't understand those instructions, it puts them at a higher risk of complications.
Yes, most French doctors can communicate in English, but they also have the right to conduct staff meetings in their native language. If the board is bilingual, chances are that the meeting will be in English. Assimilation is not the answer. why do you think the French in Quebec are so gun-ho about protecting their language?
BTW, being able to speak another language does not mean that your first language is disappearing.
I did
The second problem is english has as it worldview - common law good while french has as its view legal absolutism. English - lets work together for a solution, French you do you thing and we do ours. The only solution to improving our hospitals and care is get the doctors (and lawyers, they too can't balance a paper route books) out of administration and abolish the french seperation. Whether the french know it or not this will save french in the province not destroy it - what will be destroyed is isolationism.
2018 New Brunswick Provincial Election Leaders Debate
Rogers tv
Sep 15, 2018
The Telegraph-Journal and Rogers tv presents the 2018 New Brunswick provincial election leaders debate, featuring Jennifer McKenzie, Brian Gallant, Kris Austin, David Coon, Blaine Higgs and Gerald Bourque.
Glaciers move at a faster pace than beau acracy.
*bureaucracy
Ethics czar erred in approving LeBlanc's use of Irving plane: Democracy Watch
'Given his immune system is compromised, his doctors determined that he could not travel commercial'
Coroner and jury to determine facts surrounding death of Darrell Mesheau on July 12, 2022
Bobbi-Jean MacKinnon · CBC News · Posted: Apr 09, 2024 9:53 AM ADT
"I do I ran in the election in 2019 against Leblanc et al while having to pay for my own Health Care"
Premier complains the 2 organizations are operating in isolation — but they say they’re making progress
Jacques Poitras · CBC News · Posted: Apr 09, 2024 6:00 AM ADT
"Perhaps folks should review what Lou Bell and I were posting on my birthday nearly 5 years ago"
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