N.B. physician wait list has hit 84,000: province

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New Brunswick’s physician wait list has hit 84,000, and there are 275 doctor vacancies, Health Minister Bruce Fitch said on Wednesday.

Fitch was facing questions about how the $3.8 billion in health dollars allocated for the 2024-2025 fiscal year will be spent, but most questions from Liberal health critic Rob McKee were instead aimed at the current state of the system, and how the Tories intend to improve it.

The two verbally sparred for hours, with McKee probing for answers about timelines and goals the government has set to improve it, and Fitch accusing him of trying to trap the government into setting deadlines so if they’re missed, it’s easy to criticize.

The minister repeatedly noted that the situation in the health system is “fluid” because patients and staff come and go, and that setting hard deadlines isn’t always a smart strategy.

Throughout the day, Fitch hammered home the government’s message: the state of the health system is improving, and there’s a swath of action on multiple fronts, including recruitment, more university seats, and ongoing discussions with frontline workers.

New Brunswick’s rapid population growth, and its impact on the health system, was another topic Fitch repeatedly visited.

“For someone who says, ‘Oh, I saw (a doctor shortage) coming 20 years ago, here in New Brunswick,’ what I would argue that they couldn’t see is that population growth of 100,000 in a decade,” he said. “Even in the last quarter, there are 3,500 more people in New Brunswick.”

He later added that “the point I’m trying to get to is that this is why we’ve taken the significant number of initiatives over the last little while – because that demographic of that huge population growth was never part of (government) projections.”

Asked about the physician wait list, Fitch said there’s “about” 84,000 people on it, and that of that number, 54,700 “have access to services” like NB Health Link, which has physical offices and also offers some virtual care.

However, Fitch said, there’s “significant capacity overload,” and about 30,000 patients who have registered still don’t have access to services. But the system is “progressing” and “maturing,” Fitch said, and more NB Health Link clinics will be opening soon.

About 6,500 of the 84,000 patients on the wait list have found a permanent family physician, Fitch said.

On the push to attract new doctors, Fitch said New Brunswick “is punching above its weight,” and that there were 165 vacancies, and then “we added 110” more full-time jobs at the request of the two Regional Health Authorities (RHAs).

“So right now we are actively recruiting for 275 positions,” he said, noting that the recruitment push includes the province, the RHAs, and other “teams.”

Fitch also revealed that there are 43 collaborative care clinics – where teams of physicians, nurses and others work together – now operating in the province. But he also said the province’s definition of a collaborative care clinic doesn’t require people to be working in the same physical space, just that they are collaborating in some way.

The topic of addiction treatment capacity – which has been recently discussed in the legislature given the Tories’ intention to introduce a law that could force homeless people with “chronic” addictions into treatment – was also discussed. There are up to 200 people currently on a wait list for treatment, it was revealed, and the average wait time is between three and eight months.

That’s not good enough, McKee said.

“When people want to get the help that they need, they should be able to immediately get a placement. Three months down the road, they may have gotten worse. They may have lost their life if we don’t treat it at the earliest opportunity, when they want to get the help they need.”

The bill, titled the Compassionate Intervention Act, won’t be introduced in the legislature until next month. Questioned about it on Tuesday, Premier Blaine Higgs said it’s premature to discuss the bill until it’s introduced.

Fitch said the same thing on Wednesday, suggesting that the bill might not even pass, even though the Tories have a comfortable majority. But he agreed that the province considers it a “priority” to “increase the access to programs and care.”