Minister pledges to release primary care health plans

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Health Minister Bruce Fitch has committed to releasing the province’s new primary health-care plans kept under wraps for months from the public and from the New Brunswick Medical Society.

But exactly when the plans will be released and why they were kept confidential in the first place remains unclear.

“We can (release the primary health-care action plan) – it’s not a problem,” Fitch told media at the legislature this week. “Now it’s going to be a number of different plans laid on top of each other, but that can be done.”

Opposition MLAs first caught wind of the Progressive Conservative government’s new primary health-care transformation strategy in an annual report before a legislative committee at the end of February.

Deputy Health Minister Eric Beaulieu would later reveal that an 18-month action plan based on the strategy had actually been launched six months ago. However, he wouldn’t commit to releasing the plan when asked by Green health critic Megan Mitton in committee nor would the health department provide the documents to Brunswick News.

Fitch said Wednesday he didn’t “have a timeline right now” for when the documents would be released. However, he revealed to reporters the strategy includes multiple plans and committed to releasing them all.

“It’s about time,” Mitton said after hearing the news. “I’ve been asking for them to release it for a while now, so we need to see what’s actually in there.”

Brunswick News has filed a right-to-information request to obtain the primary health care strategy, action plan and other supporting documents.

Last month, before the public accounts committee, Beaulieu provided a high-level overview of the strategy, which includes an interdisciplinary primary health-care model and an improved electronic medical record system.

Beaulieu indicated the department planned to spend $10.3 million annually on initiatives from this strategy.

The New Brunswick Medical Society (NBMS) had not seen the primary care action plan nor heard from the province about how it plans to transition doctors to electronic medical records, according to its president Dr. Paula Keating in a statement to Brunswick News earlier this month.

The professional association represents more than 2,000 practising, future and retired physicians.

In a statement Thursday, Keating said the society was pleased to hear Fitch and his department can now share their “internal planning documents.”

“However, this does not eliminate the need for an actual strategy and plan built in consultation with all relevant provincial stakeholders,” she continued. “Primary care is a shared space with several public and private sector stakeholders, not to mention the patients involved.”

A primary care summit bringing together these stakeholders is planned for May 31 at the Fredericton Convention Centre. It’s being co-hosted by the health department and the medical society.

Keating called the summit a “perfect opportunity for all partners to come together and create a compelling vision and roadmap for transformative change.”

Strategy’s forthcoming release ‘better late than never’

Liberal health critic Rob McKee says the forthcoming release of the strategy is “better late than never.”

“I don’t know what the holdup is and why (Fitch would) be withholding that from the public, from the legislature, from the stakeholders,” McKee said, noting a recent budget submission from a working group of New Brunswick medical professionals called for “legitimate pre-budget consultation.”

A working group was involved in the creation of the primary health-care action plan, according to the Department of Health. It was made up of representatives from the New Brunswick College of Family Physicians, Horizon and Vitalité health networks, the Department of Health, the New Brunswick Health Council, the Department of Social Development, and Extra-Mural/Ambulance New Brunswick.

Both Horizon and Vitalité health networks have shared details of their primary care plans, which include a transition to a new “patient medical home” model.

The Tory government has committed $20 million in its 2024-25 budget to “expand collaborative practices and improve access to primary health care.”

Mitton says she’ll be looking at the action plan to see if the Tantramar (Sackville) primary health-care clinic will be expanded. It was set up last year in the wake of three physicians and a nurse practitioner leaving the area.

“It’s only operating three days a week and it’s only able to deal with some of the most urgent patients from those practices that have closed,” she said. “It needs to be fully funded, it needs to be renovated, it needs to expand, and it needs to actually be able to serve people in that community because right now, there are so many who aren’t being followed although they have serious chronic conditions.”

Horizon has listed the expansion of the Sackville clinic as one of its highest priorities, submitting a funding request for the project to the health department. As of last month, Horizon was waiting on a response from the government.