“All options are on the table” for the health-care system, including more services delivered by the private sector, according to Premier Blaine Higgs.
But his remarks about health-care reform this week have prompted critics to warn that privatization will only worsen conditions in the public health-care system.
Listen to the report that aired on CHMA on Thursday, August 25, 2022:
“There’s a recruitment and retention issue here in this province,” said Susie Proulx-Daigle, head of the New Brunswick Union, which represents several thousand health-care professionals in the province.
“Introducing the private sector is only going to take away professionals out of the public system,” she said.
Higgs made the remarks at a media conference in Moncton on Monday, flanked by three other premiers: Ontario’s Doug Ford, P.E.I.’s Dennis King and Nova Scotia’s Tim Houston, all of them Tory leaders.
“For me, you know, all options are on the table to understand what are best practices,” he said.
However, that doesn’t mean patients will have to pay more money out of their own pockets for better health care services, he said. “What we’re talking about here is publicly-funded healthcare.”
‘Slippery slope’
However, in an interview, Proulx-Daigle warned that privatization is a “very slippery slope” to a “system that will benefit the rich, the one percent,” she said.
“When Medicare was put in place, it was to ensure that everybody had equal access to health care. And it wasn’t just for the rich.”
Megan Mitton, Green Party MLA for Memramcook-Tantramar, noted a drift towards privatization under successive governments.
In 2017, the Liberal government of Premier Brian Gallant announced that it would hand over the management of extramural nursing and Tele-Care to Medavie Health Services New Brunswick.
Medavie is a not-for-profit organization, but Mitton said it lacks public accountability because it’s a private-sector entity.
“When they come to public accounts, they don’t see themselves as a Crown corporation, we can’t find out the salaries of the executives.”
ER closures
Horizon Health Network recently announced progress in its efforts to recruit more health-care staff, just as reports emerged that another patient had died while waiting for medical attention.
In Sackville, emergency room closures linked to staff shortages mean that some area residents are travelling to Moncton or Amherst for emergency services.
Raven Gauthier is among the Sackville-area residents that have turned to out-of-town hospitals because of closures at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.
Gauthier also wrote about her experience in an open letter to Premier Blaine Higgs, which she published on social media.
Listen to the report featuring Raven Gauthier that aired on CHMA on Friday, August 19, 2022: