​Nursing Homes Without Walls and Other Priorities in Health and Long-Term Care Reform:

The health and long-term care systems in New Brunswick have been left so long without firm vision and direction that Minister Dornan, Minister Miles and Premier Holt have a monumental strategic challenge in order to get the pieces moving in tandem to provide the essential results of reform.

By now, the public is well aware of the need for Primary Care Reform and Reform of Emergency Departments.  The term “unattached patients” or “orphan patients” is an unnecessarily degrading term to describe taxpayers who have simply not been able to get through the long list of thousands of people waiting for a regular slot on the list of one of New Brunswick’s terrific physicians.  And it gets worse when they, or anyone else, has occasion to visit the Emergency Department in one of New Brunswick’s larger hospitals, only to be met with uncomfortable waits of up to 24 hours “to be seen”.

The most recent example that was brought to my attention was a person who actually suffering from a serious cancer requiring prompt diagnosis and treatment.  Under the circumstances described, sitting in an Emergency Department waiting room for seven hours was tragic at best.  I am not in a position of any executive authority nor with any particular influence, but I have heard those stories for far too long. 

In my own case, just in the last year, I experienced serious cardiac symptoms for weeks before eventually giving in to call the ambulance.  I was fearful of the long waits because mine were not the classic acute chest pain symptoms.  I was confident the EMTs would get me to the care required and they did!

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