Sackville emergency department closed again this weekend due to doctor shortage
The Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department is closed temporarily for another weekend, according to an announcement this afternoon from the Horizon Health Network.
Horizon says that due to “a shortage of physician coverage”, the Sackville emergency department will close at 4pm on Friday, September 16 and reopen Monday, September 19, 2022, at 8am.
All patients requiring emergency medical care will need to be treated at another hospital. The two closest emergency rooms are in Amherst and Moncton.
Horizon says all ambulances will be diverted to other hospitals. Anyone with a medical emergency should still call 911.For non-urgent medical needs, Horizon encourages use of Tele-Care 811, pharmacies, virtual care at eVisitNB.ca, and after-hours clinics. More information on these options is available at sowhywait.ca.
Interim Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson recently re-affirmed the health network’s committment to return to 24/7 service at the Sackville hospital emergency department. Melanson made the committment in a meeting with Sackville Mayor Shawn Mesheau and other local mayors in August, according to Mesheau’s monthly report to council.
The meeting also included Suzanne Johnston, the new trustee appointed by the Higgs government to replace Horizon’s partially elected board of directors. Johnston will be interviewed by MLAs today starting at 2pm at the provincial legislature’s public accounts committee.
Mesheau reported to council that nurse practitioners are now working alongside doctors in the Sackville emergency department to help cover primary care related needs. Mesheau also met with Horizon’s medical director Dr.… Continue
Health care update: doctors needed for Sackville ED, acute care back in the fall, Coon calls for change
There are almost enough nurses hired to fill positions at the Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department (ED), but the hospital has less than half the doctors it needs.
According to information released recently by Horizon Health Network, nine out of ten registered nurse (RN) positions in the Sackville ED are filled, but only three out of seven physician positions are filled.
The two most recent closures of the Sackville ED were due to a shortage of doctors available to work. At least two doctors stopped working in the department after a recent change by Horizon, which lifted a rule requiring them to work ED shifts in order to maintain a practice in Sackville. The change was meant to help make recruitment of new doctors to the Sackville area easier, since not all family doctors want to work in emergency.
Nurse practitioners and the return of acute care?
In his monthly report to council, Mayor Shawn Mesheau says that interim Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson recently re-affirmed the committment to return 24/7 service to the Sackville hospital ED.
Mesheau and other local mayors met with Melanson and newly appointed trustee Suzanne Johnston in August. Mesheau reported that nurse practitioners are now working alongside doctors in the Sackville ED to help cover primary care related needs. His report also says that several acute care beds are expected to be opening in the Brunswick Unit of Sackville hospital in October.… Continue
Omicron strains health-care system, workers face exhaustion, say unions
Nearly 200 COVID-positive health-care workers in the Horizon Health Network were isolating by Friday, according to the regional health authority.
It’s unclear how many workers at Sackville Memorial Hospital are affected, but that figure included 41 health-care staff in the health region overall.
CHMA reached out to officials from unions representing health-care workers to learn how the rapid spread of COVID-19 is affecting their members and hospital operations.
The Canadian Union of Public Employees represents approximately 140 job classifications in the health-care system.
Examples include pandemic screeners, security guards, clerical staff, patient care attendants, maintenance workers, housekeeping and dietary staff.
Norma Robinson, president of the New Brunswick Council of Hospital Unions, CUPE Local 1252, said efforts are underway to procure personal protective equipment to safeguard workers from the highly contagious Omicron variant.
The self-isolation of infected workers is putting further strain on the health-care system, but there was no indication the issue was particularly severe at the Sackville hospital by Friday, she said.
Patients may encounter delays, and she asked the public for patience. “It might take a little bit longer, but we’re there to serve, and we’re trying to keep everybody healthy and safe,” she said.
Alana Best, a nursing unit clerk and CUPE union president at the Sackville hospital, said COVID-19 was more nerve-wracking earlier in the pandemic, but the situation remains difficult.… Continue
Hospital staffing will “get worse before it gets better” says Shephard
Just a few days after a rally of hundreds outside the Sackville Memorial Hospital calling for a solution to the health care staffing crisis, Horizon Health announced an additional unexpected closure of emergency services at the hospital over the weekend.
At about 1:30pm Saturday, Horizon issued an public service announcement saying that the Sackville ER would close early “due a sudden unavailability of physician and nurse coverage.”
The Sackville ER is already operating on reduced hours, open just 8 hours a day, from 8am to 4pm, seven days a week. And acute care services at the hospital have also been suspended due to staff shortages.
The closure on Saturday seemed to echo the words of health minister Dorothy Shephard at a news conference the day before, when she said the staffing situation in Sackville would “get worse before it gets better.”
“We’re dealing with long standing issues that have never really been addressed,” said Shephard. “And they go back many years.”
“We have recruitment and retention programs that are implemented now that we will be enhancing in the weeks coming forward,” said Shephard. “And that’s our only way out of this. We have got to get the personnel that can to deliver the programs that we have there.”
Shephard also reiterated a commitment made by Horizon interim CEO John Dornan earlier in the week, that there was no plan to shut down or cut back services at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.… Continue
Rural Health Action Group calls for immediate action to repair “fundamentally broken” relationship with Horizon, province
The co-chairs of the Memramcook-Tantramar Community Task Force and the Rural Health Action Group are angry, and they’re not playing nice anymore.
In a strongly-worded letter addressed to the premier, Minister of Health Dorothy Shephard, Horizon CEO John Dornan, and other Horizon managers, the group says the relationship with Horizon management and the department of health has been “fundamentally broken” after an announcement on Friday informing them the Sackville Memorial Hospital would be closing its acute care unit.
Read the full letter of response here (pdf).
“We are embarrassed by our efforts to recruit people for jobs you seem to have no plans to actually offer. We are humiliated in the face of increasing numbers of citizens who ‘told us so’ about the government’s disingenuous nature. We believe that you don’t even understand your own Action Plan; it’s folly to think you can do ‘business as usual’ and then expect different results,” states the letter, signed by former Sackville mayors Pat Estabrooks and John Higham, and former councillor Margaret Tusz-King.
The Rural Health Action Group has been mobilizing since the summer, when Horizon announced cuts to ER service at the Sackville hospital, reducing it to 8 hours per day on weekends. That has since been expanded to a full seven days.
The group secured $15,000 in funding from the Town of Sackville to put toward recruitment activities, and has plans to work with the hospital foundation to fundraise further.
Group leaders were meeting with Horizon management, and had been informed that the most recent cuts to ER service were being made in order to maintain staffing levels for acute care.… Continue