‘Hugely disappointed’ in Higgs’ health shake up, says rural health group co-chair John Higham
John Higham is not very hopeful about the shake-up in New Brunswick health care announced last week by Premier Blaine Higgs. In fact, the former Sackville mayor and co-chair of the Rural Health Action Group says he is “hugely disappointed” in Higgs’ announcement on Friday that he is firing Horizon CEO John Dornan, dissolving Horizon and Vitalité boards, and shuffling his cabinet ministers around to put Bruce Fitch in charge of health and Dorothy Shephard in charge of social development.
Higham has been involved in defending health care services in Sackville since the “first significant threat” to the hospital took place while he was mayor, in February 2020. Since then, the overarching issue he’s observed is that “health services have just been divorced from community needs and desire to help.” Higham felt the work he and the other volunteers of the Rural Health Action Group have done in the past while was working towards changing that.
“We saw some great progress in the last few years,” Higham says, “particularly with our collaboration with Horizon and with Dr. Dornan’s understanding of what he saw in rural [health], and what was required. And now I just don’t see any of that. I’m really frustrated with this announcement.”
Here the full interview with John Higham here:
At the beginning of a “tidal wave” of Omicron, Public Health asks people to reduce contacts without additional restrictions
The news was dire in a technical briefing yesterday from New Brusnwick’s department of health.
Mathieu Chalifoux, lead COVID-19 epidemiologist with Public Health, presented projections for case counts and hospitalizations into the next two months, showing a steep curve peaking at the end of January or beginning of February.
Chalifoux said over 5000 New Brunswickers can be expected to develop the disease daily by the end of the month. ”Over a five day period, this would be about 25,000 individuals, assuming 2.3 individuals per household. This could mean over 7% or approximately 55,000 people isolating at any given moment,” the epidemiologist warned.
Unlike the last projections presented by the province, these account for the increased transmissibility of the Omicron variant which is now dominant in the province, but there have been some changes since the projections were created. In early January, the province started to limit eligibility for testing. Those limits could mean official PCR numbers come in lower than the stated projections, unless results from rapid tests are included.
The province has started to report the results from rapid tests that are being voluntarily submitted by those who test positive with the take-home test kits. On Tuesday, there were 191 new positive PCR cases announced, along with 842 new positive rapid test results.
Chalifoux acknowledged that case counts based on PCR testing are underreported, but increasingly the more important metric is the number of people that will need to be admitted to hospital with COVID-19.… Continue
Horizon officials commit to hospital future, say recent cuts were necessary
There were some unexpected guests at Monday’s Sackville town council meeting. At the invitation of Mayor Shawn Mesheau, Horizon CEO John Dornan and three other senior staff attended the meeting via video conference, to address concerns raised in a letter from the Rural Action Health Group sent that same day.
The letter was itself a response to an announcement on Friday from Horizon, that they would be converting the acute care unit at Sackville Memorial Hospital to beds for people waiting placement in long term care facilities. The letter from the Rural Health Action group outlined three demands:
● quick action and public commitment to return the Sackville Memorial Hospital to 24/7 ER services and 21 acute care beds, as before
● Horizon budget commitments in line with ours, to continue our collaboration on recruitment
● honest staffing numbers, needs and predictions, so our recruitment efforts will be honest and successful.
At the Monday meeting, Dornan immediately gave re-assurances that Horizon was committed to reopening services at Sackville Memorial.
“I’m going to start things off by saying that we are, as a healthcare corporation, nothing but supportive of Sackville Memorial Hospital,” said Dornan, and promised to deliver in written form a “commitment to supporting 24/7 care at Sackville Memorial, as well as active inpatient care, operating room services, specimen collection and emergency room care.”… Continue
Wednesday on TR: Hospital rally today; Higham on Horizon’s response to frustration in Sackville
Listen to Tantramar Report for the following stories:
Hospital rally Wednesday at 11:30am
Sackville and area residents are rallying today at 11:30am at the Sackville Memorial Hospital. The Rural Health Action Group is asking people to come protest the recent service closures at the hospital and call for action on the crisis. Guest speakers will be presenting at the rally. Masks are mandatory and parking is available just down the street at Main Street Baptist church and Moneris.
Interview: John Higham on hospital cuts, Rural Health Action Group and and Horizon’s response
On Tantramar Report we talk with John Higham, former Sackville mayor and co-chair of the Rural Health Action Group. Higham talks about the group’s work, his reaction to comments from Horizon Health CEO John Dornan at Monday’s town council meeting, and the path forward for the Sackville hospital.
Also on Tantramar Report, we look at what Horizon officials had to say at Sackville town council on Monday.
Horizon issues call to nurses to come work in Sackville
After promising action on recruitment at Monday’s Sackville town council meeting, Horizon CEO John Dornan issued a statement on Tuesday, addressed to “current and future New Brunswick nurses.” In the statement, Dornan pitches Sackville as a “friendly, welcoming and progressive community” and offers nurses financial incentives for certain eligible positions, including a one-time incentive of $10,000 in exchange for an agreement to work for three years.… Continue