Premier Susan Holt and health minister John Dornan were in Sackville yesterday to make another announcement on their government’s primary health care tour through the province, stopping at the Tantramar Primary Health Care Centre across from the Sackville hospital.
Holt announced the plan for the clinic to add another 1000 patients to its roster by the end of the year, and to wipe out the region’s current primary care waiting list by spring 2026.
The Horizon-run Tantramar clinic was opened in the fall of 2023 in response to a slew of local physician retirements. The clinic spent more than a year significantly understaffed and struggling to serve patients, much less grow its patient list. But these days, Horizon CEO Margaret Melanson says the clinic is serving 1,650 people, “who have access to a physician, two nurse practitioners, two registered nurses, a licensed practical nurse, three administrative staff to support, and a range of allied health professionals, including a dietitian, a pharmacist, a social worker and a respiratory therapist.”
The next 1000 patients to be onboarded will come from the province’s NB Health Link list of people without a dedicated provider. Melanson said people would be called based on geography and the length of time they’ve been on the list.
Holt and Dornan said the government’s long term goal is that all New Brunswickers will eventually be able to seek primary care in their own communities.
“It’s one thing to be attached,” Holt told reporters after the announcement. “It’s another thing to be attached at a place that you don’t have to fill up the tank to get to.”
Holt said the goal of eliminating the wait list in Tantramar by spring of next year will be replicated “in every corner of the province, with a goal of having everyone, based on their post code, been able to walk into a primary care clinic and get served as quickly as possible.”
“We are fans of Jane Philpott,” said Dornan, referring to the former federal minister of health who has proposed that access to primary care be considered on par with access to public education in Canada. Dornan said he’d like to see even those who are not on the waiting list have access to primary care.
“What we would like to see is that when they go into the emergency department and they don’t have a serious problem, they give us their address and we say, well, there’s a clinic in Tantramar that can look after you. Would you like us to make an appointment for 10 o’clock tomorrow?” said Dornan.
“The geography is critical. That’s how we will come close to satisfying everybody’s primary care attachment needs,” said Dornan.
Sackville ER service ‘stabilized’
There was hope on Tuesday that the growing Tantramar primary care clinic may alleviate pressure on the Sackville Memorial Hospital’s emergency department, but Melanson says there’s no short term plan to expand on the Sackville ER’s current hours. Those hours were cut by two thirds in November 2021, in a move Horizon said was temporary at the time. Last April, Moncton and Sackville hospital director Christa Wheeler-Thorne said the agency was looking at how to “incrementally expand the ER [service hours.]”
But Melanson was less optimistic on Tuesday:
“At this point in time, the Sackville ER is stabilized with the existing hours. As of today, we are not moving to increase the hours. We still have an expectation that in the future, we can do that. We know the community really desires a 24-hour-a-day service. However, as of today, we are stabilized with the existing hours.”
Melanson did say that there is a possibility the new primary care clinic may be able to offer some services after hours. “That is in our plan,” said the CEO, “that we will expand hours and that we would also have, in some degree, some type of weekend service.”
Melanson said she couldn’t yet say what that might look like. “This is something that the team is talking about, how could we have some type of a rotation so that there is a care provider available, perhaps at least six days a week, so that people will not have to wait unnecessarily?”
Two MLAs were on hand for Tuesdays’ announcement, Natacha Vautour of Dieppe-Memramcook and Megan Mitton of Tantramar. Mitton said she credited both local health care advocates and Horizon for the progress on the clinic, and that “it’s wonderful to see it coming to fruition, and to see that there’s going to be an increase in access to primary care, because it’s desperately needed in our community.”
But Mitton said she was still concerned about the lack of progress returning evening and overnight service to the Sackville emergency department. “There’s been a shadow over the community that impacts our mental health,” said Mitton. “We don’t know if the ER will be open when we need it, and that’s scary, and that still remains to be fixed.”
Among the government and Horizon officials who spoke on Tuesday was Sackville resident and primary care centre patient Janet Hammock, who shared her experience as a senior who signed on to the clinic roster after her doctor retired. And Hammock may have received the biggest applause of the morning when she told those gathered, “II believe very strongly that equal access to health care is a right of all Canadians.”
“I’m trying to do all that I can to support the growth of this centre and others like them,” said Hammock, “until its doors are open to everyone in the Tantramar region. I’m very heartened by what I’ve heard Premier Holt say today.”
To hear Janet Hammock’s full address, click below:
