Horizon health network has confirmed that the Sackville Memorial Hospital emergency department recently lost two doctors who had been working in the department.
Dr. Jody Enright, Horizon’s medical director in the Moncton area, says the two left emergency, “to focus on their respective family practices.”
The Sackville hospital emergency department has been closed for two additional days in the past two weeks due to a lack of physician availability. That’s on top of already reduced hours that have been in place for over a year, due to mostly to a lack of nursing staff.
The decision by the two doctors to leave the emergency department was made possible by a recent policy change at Horizon. Previously, doctors in Sackville were required to work shifts at the emergency department in order to maintain a practice in the area. Enright says that condition, “has presented a significant barrier to our recruitment efforts in Sackville, as very few candidates are interested in managing a family practice while also taking on additional duties in the [emergency department].”
Enright says the decision to remove the requirement was made “in consultation with and supported by the medical team.” She believes the change will significantly enhance the chances of “identifying, recruiting and ultimately retaining more family physicians and Emergency Department physicians in Sackville moving forward.“
John Higham, former Sackville mayor and co-chair of the Rural Health Action Group describes the decision as a positive response by Horizon, and one that has been tried elsewhere. “What we have heard is Sussex did the same thing, and that they didn’t find [filling shifts at the ER] to be an issue.”
Higham said doctors would still be able to admit their patients to the hospital, once the acute care beds that were converted in December return to service. “So long as we get back the acute beds, which is on the plan, then we should be able to do at least as well as we were doing before,” says Higham.
In the meantime, Enright said that Horizon is continuously advertising emergency department shifts to physicians throughout the region, but interest has not been great, “due to limited physician resources throughout the health care system.”
She says that’s why Horizon is, “aggressively targeting physicians with a specific interest in emergency medicine in our efforts to attract talent who can help stabilize emergency services at the Sackville Memorial Hospital.”
