The Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department (ED) is closed for a second day this week due to a shortage of available physicians.
Horizon Health Network made the announcement at noon Friday that the Sackville ED would close at 4pm as usual, and remain closed until Sunday morning at 8am. This is the second full-day closure this week, and both closures are due to a lack of available physicians to staff the department.
All patients requiring emergency medical care will need to be treated at another hospital, with the closest emergency departments in Amherst and Moncton. Horizon says all ambulances will be diverted to other hospitals.
The Horizon announcement says, “We are actively working to recruit physicians and nurses to reduce temporary closures and resume services to the communities we serve. Horizon remains committed to providing safe and quality care, and the decision to temporarily close the ED is made to ensure safe care for our patients and clients.”
In July, Premier Blaine Higgs suddenly fired former Horizon CEO John Dornan, in reaction to a widely reported death in the waiting room of the emergency department at the Chalmers Hospital in Fredericton. Then-CEO Dornan ordered a review of the death, and was later fired by Higgs in a shake up that also abolished the partially elected boards of directors governing the Horizon and Vitalité health networks, and shuffled Dorothy Shephard out of her position as minister of health.
This week, the New Brunswick Medical Society released a statement addressing what it calls “political involvement in health care”.
The statement, attributed to president Mark Mark MacMillan and chair Christopher Goodyear, reads, in part:
“Physicians have been facing challenging working conditions and low morale for years. Recent political intervention in issues of patient care and interference from other parties who lack clinical perspective have left many of us feeling frustrated, disrespected, and undervalued. Clinicians have trained for many years and possess the skills to be trusted to handle situations that arise in providing appropriate patient care. For obvious reasons, politicians and other administrators often lack a complete comprehension of all aspects of a clinical situation; therefore, inserting themselves or commenting on the clinical aspects of health care can prove not only unhelpful, but also dangerous.”
The statement does not name a specific incident of political interference.
It goes on to criticize the news media for “naming specific health professionals, which can include damaging the morale and integrity of those implicated.”
The statement concludes:
“Those of us in healthcare do indeed need help. New Brunswick invests the lowest per capita on public health expenditure of all Atlantic provinces. We need targeted investments directed at primary care access, emergency department wait times and surgical backlogs. We need more physicians, and we need to better recognize the value of the ones already working here. In short, we need to be given the tools to do our jobs, not advice or directives on how those jobs should be done.”