Horizon’s Nancy Parker talks about her role re-building the nursing staff at Sackville Memorial Hospital
“Over the summer there could be gaps, but we’re committed to continue to work very hard with our community and within Horizon to close those gaps.”
That’s Nancy Parker, former Sackville Memorial Hospital nurse and Horizon manager, now tasked with the job of recruiting and retaining nurses at the small hospital which has had drastic service reductions due to a lack of available staff in recent years.
The Sackville hospital emergency department has had staffing issues for years, beginning in the months after a previous Horizon administration announced the permanent shutdown of overnight services at a number of small hospitals through the province. That announcement was almost immediately reversed, but the damage had been done, and nursing vacancies at the Sackville Memorial Hospital started to grow.
Then just over a year ago, Horizon announced a drastic reduction in emergency department hours at Sackville Memorial. And in December, at around the same time that Nancy Parker was hired, Horizon closed acute care beds at the hospital.
The message since then has been that Horizon is working towards re-staffing and re-storing services in the Sackville hospital, and Nancy Parker is part of that plan.
CHMA called up Parker last week to find out more about what she’s doing, and how its going.
“A terrific stroke from Horizon”: former Horizon manager to help restore service at Sackville hospital
Horizon Health has hired a recently retired executive director and former nurse to help retain and recruit health care workers at the Sackville Memorial Hospital. Nancy Parker retired recently from her position as executive director of the Moncton and Sackville hospitals, a position taken over by Christa Wheeler-Thorne in the summer of 2021. Parker has now taken on the interim, part-time role at the hospital.
Members of the Rural Health Action Committee are confident that Parker is a solid choice for the job, according to co-chair John Higham. Those who know Parker “speak extraordinarily highly of her abilities, and the attitude in which she goes about the work at the hospital and on all health services,” says Higham.
CHMA has requested an interview with Parker, to hear first hand about her work at the hospital.
The move to hire Parker is “a terrific stroke from Horizon”, says Higham, and what’s more, the move came from the health network, without the Rural Health Action Group directly asking for it.
“They identified [Parker] as an individual that would have great credibility to go back into the hospital and begin to address some of those impacts that she will see there, in staffing and in the organization of the hospital,” says Higham. “Most of us see that as a really big step forward to get that hospital back up to the condition it needs to be.”… Continue