Foundation aims for $225k for Sackville day surgeries, while ER remains ‘on the agenda’ for Horizon
Board members, staff and supporters of the Sackville Memorial Hospital Foundation gathered last week for the launch of a new capital campaign in support of equipment for the hospital’s day surgery programs, with an ambitious goal of raising $225,000, well above last year’s goal of $150,000.
Foundation chair Bill Evans says the reason for the steep increase in fundraising goal is three new, very large, advance donations which put the foundation more than a third of the way to their goal. “This is from people who hadn’t given to us before,” says Evans. “So we decided to have a goal that was bigger.”
Evans says the three new donors have asked to remain either anonymous or uncelebrated, and were referred to the Foundation by orthopedic surgeon Dr. Mike Forsythe.
The money raised in this year’s campaign will go towards buying specialized equipment for the day surgery program, including instruments for hip, knee and shoulder arthroscopy, a warming cabinet, a surgical suction system, ear, nose and throat devices, and a training tool called iSimulate.
Horizon says the new equipment will increase the number of patients who could receive surgical care in Sackville, in turn freeing up space in the Moncton hospital for more complex operations.
Sackville resident Jaryd Morrisey, who coaches soccer and badminton at Mount Allison, told those gathered about a knee surgery that helped him heal a longstanding injury, giving him back his active lifestyle.… Continue
Sackville hospital to double OR capacity in 2023 as part of Horizon operating room expansion plan
Note: This story has been updated with a response from the Department of Health and comments from local retired doctor, Ross Thomas.
Two operating rooms at the Sackville Memorial Hospital are set to get some TLC starting in 2023.
On Friday, Horizon Health announced a plan to invest about $6.4 million in operating rooms (ORs) at the Sackville hospital and three other community hospitals in the province. In Sackville, that means spending about $2 million to upgrade one operating room that’s currently in use, and renovate another room to make it functional again.
The overall plan is to ramp up the use of ORs in community hospitals across the province to help alleviate the surgical backlog for less complex day surgeries, which will in turn allow more complex surgeries to happen more quickly in the regional hospitals.
“These programs will not only increase the number of hip and knee replacements completed each year, but in many cases, they will also increase our capacity for orthopedic surgery, cataract surgery, endoscopy and other procedures,” says acting Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson. “Augmenting the surgical services at these community facilities will also allow our regional hospitals to complete more complex and acute cases, which is a win-win for the broader healthcare system.”
Operating rooms are part of the centralized surgical system at Horizon.… Continue
Allain dismisses Sackville council concerns and affirms appointment of Jennifer Borne as Tantramar CAO
Note: This story was updated at 5:45pm to include comments from Sackville councillor Michael Tower.
Local Government Minister Daniel Allain has turned down Mayor Shawn Mesheau’s request for an independent review of the process behind hiring a new Tantramar CAO. In a letter to council this week, Allain said he was sticking with his appointment of Dorchester CAO Jennifer Borne to head up the staff for the new municipality of Tantramar. The only other candidate for the job was Sackville CAO Jamie Burke.
Mesheau wrote to Allain about two weeks ago after Sackville town council asked him to do so at their regular July meeting. Mesheau called the process which resulted in Borne’s appointment “fundamentally flawed”, and asked for a meeting with Allain and a review of the whole process by an independent HR consultant.
The minister and the mayor met last week, and this week, Allain sent his reply to all councillors expressing his “confidence in the recruitment process leading to [his] decision to appoint Jennifer Borne to the role.”
Allain’s letter mentioned the province’s contract with Jennifer Murray Consulting of Moncton, whom he said were “responsible for overseeing a biased free [sic] recruitment process leading to a fair and objective evaluation of candidates.”
The letter reads, “The position advertisement, essential qualifications, competencies, and candidate evaluation grid were based on an objective assessment of the position requirements and all candidates were assessed based on the established criteria.”… Continue
Local governance reform minister Daniel Allain to meet privately with elected officials in Sackville Friday
Local government minister Daniel Allain is coming to Sackville town hall this Friday to meet with councillors and representatives from Sackville, Dorchester and surrounding areas, but the meeting will be closed to the public.
News of the private meeting with Allain was shared Monday night at Sackville town council’s monthly discussion meeting, after Councillor Bill Evans prompted Mayor Shawn Mesheau to mention it. The mayor had just finished his update on municipal reform without mentioning the meeting with the minister, when Evans chimed in to ask if he planned to mention it.
“Minister Allain’s office has reached out and has requested a meeting with members of council, members of Dorchester council and the other members who participate on the elected officials Advisory Committee,” replied Mesheau. “It won’t be a public meeting. It’ll be a private meeting with ministers.”
Secrecy has been a hallmark of the amalgamation process so far. Though the appointed facilitator for the process, Chad Peters, is authorized with creating a new budget and employment structure for the new Entity 40, he is not authorized to speak with media. And ever since the forced amalgamation was announced, neither Allain nor Peters has held a meeting open to citizens of the future Entity 40.
That doesn’t sit right with some town councillors.
Councillor Sabine Dietz told council on Monday that she would sit out the meeting in protest.… Continue
Councillors express dismay at under-representation; ask for a single Sackville ward with reps at-large
On Thursday evening, Sackville’s municipal reform committee met for a third time, with a narrow mandate of providing input on whether Sackvillians would elect their future Entity 40 representatives at large, or in up to four separate wards.
But before they got to that question, councillors sounded off on a previous decision made by the province, to forego its own representation-by-population guidelines and allot just 50% of representatives to the former town of Sackville, which is home to 68% of the population of the new Entity 40.
Right off the bat, Councillor Allison Butcher asked Deputy Mayor Andrew Black if there was any chance of changing what she called “a skew as far as population goes?”
“No,” said Black. “That has been decided. That meeting that we had on the 15th, whatever decision was made at the end of that night with the advisory committee that was there, that decision was final.”
It’s become a theme of the municipal reform process so far: rushed decisions made in private meetings, with no substantive engagement with councils, much less the general public.
It was enough for Butcher to forego her usual attempts to put a positive spin on her comments: “At the risk of sounding really, really jaded, it probably doesn’t matter what I think should happen with the four councillors representing the 7000 people,” said Butcher, “because I’m starting to feel like it doesn’t matter what we think.”
Black told the committee that after a 1.5 hour meeting on February 15 with provincially appointed facilitator Chad Peters and the eight appointees to the provincial advisory committee, there was a consensus reached among all members, including himself and Mayor Shawn Mesheau.… Continue
In a tense meeting, Sackville council turns down two motions to slow down amalgamation
Things move quickly in the world of New Brunswick municipal reform, and on Monday two Sackville town councillors took a stab at slowing that down.
Councillor Bill Evans presented his motion calling for a boycott of the amalgamation process, instructing staff and councillors not to engage in advisory committees set up by the province. Evans argued that it would be more effective to protest the forced amalgamation by making the province “do their own dirty work.”
“Remember, they’ve only got one facilitator [for] five amalgamations,” said Evans. “They can’t do our amalgamation without our help. So let’s not help them. Let’s try to shame the bully and say, maybe we can’t stop you, but we’ll be damned if we will help you.”
Right off the bat, CAO Jamie Burke reacted with a strong message of alarm. Burke said he consulted with the town’s lawyer about the motion, and was paraphrasing from that conversation when he spoke to council Monday.
Burke made that case that Evans’ motion was actually illegal, because the province has passed Bill 82, giving it the tools to impose municipal amalgamations across the province in the next year. Burke said Bill 82 also gave the province, “the right to make inquiries into the assets and liabilities of local governments affected by restructuring,” which would mean that himself and town staff would be required to cooperate with Chad Peters, the provincially-appointed facilitator.… Continue
Amalgamation process will not be public, but public will be consulted, says Mesheau
The meetings of advisory committees appointed by the province to help steer the amalgamation of Sackville, Dorchester and surrounding local service districts will not be open to the public.
Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau says that two committees will be struck, one made up of staff, and one made up of elected and appointed representatives from each of the five areas being amalgamated. The department of local government says that the two mayors (Shawn Mesheau and Debbie Wiggins-Colwell from Dorchester) will sit on the committee, as well as Mary-Ellen Trueman from the Pointe de Bute local service district. Another two representatives, from the Sackville and Dorchester local service districts respectfully, could be appointed this week.
Mesheau says that based on a request from Sackville town council, the number of representatives on the committee will be expanded to two for each area, and Deputy Mayor Andrew Black has been selected to sit on the committee representing Sackville along with the mayor. But whether it is five or ten representatives, the meetings of the committee will be held behind closed doors.
“These aren’t public meetings,” says Mesheau. “They are meetings that are being held through the province, through the facilitator.”
The province recently appointed Chad Peters as a “facilitator” to oversee the formation of Entity 40, plus four other new entities in the southeast region, as well as the transition for Regional Service Commission 8.
Return of stolen radar speed sign requested “no questions asked”
People driving along Pond Shore Road might notice that the radar speed sign that used to remind them of their current speed as they passed is gone.
Public works liaison council Matt Estabrooks told council Monday night that the sign was stolen on August 30, the very same day a repaired radar speed sign was installed in the opposite direction on Pond Shore Road. The second, repaired sign has been removed until public works staff figure out a way to protect it against theft.
Town engineer Dwayne Acton said after the meeting that staff were considering trail cams, and talking with the manufacturer about other ways to secure or track the signs, including GPS. The speed sign cost the town about $4,000, though replacing it will cost slightly less, he said.
The radar speed signs have been the source of trouble before, due to issues retrieving speed data from the units, which stores the speed of each vehicle as it passes the sign. The engineering department recently was able to retrieve the data and has forwarded it to the RCMP.
Acton says he’s not sure where in the public works budget he will find the money to replace the sign, and he’s having a hard time imagining what someone might want with it. He said he’d welcome the return of the sign to the public works department, “no questions asked.”… Continue
Sackville town council calls for regional governments, fairness in taxation
Amalgamation is unrealistic, equalization is unfair, and regional collaboration is great if all residents pay a fair share: those are some of the key messages in a letter from Sackville mayor Shawn Mesheau to Minister of Local Government Daniel Allain, unanimously approved by town council on Tuesday evening.
The letter breaks down Sackville’s input on local governance reform into four areas first outlined in the province’s green paper on the topic: structure, land use planning, regional collaboration, and finance.
STRUCTURE: LEAVE THE TOWN, INCORPORATE THE LSDs
Structure is typically the first thing people think of when talking municipal reform.
Currently about 30% of New Brunswickers, like those living in the Sackville Parish local service district (LSD) just outside of town limits, don’t have local level representation. Instead they are governed directly by the province, with no political power over municipal issues.
Daniel Allain has expressed interest in ending that lack of representation, and the town of Sackville supports the idea. The letter suggests “some form of regional government” for unincorporated areas such as local service districts, so that the town will have someone to negotiate with when it comes to collaboration “on projects or other investments that serve a regional benefit.” Currently, the town deals with the province for regional collaborations, and the power balance there means there’s not much negotiation.… Continue