The Fundy Health Centre is receiving $1.5 million from the provincial government to physically expand the facility and onboard new patients as part of it’s collaborative care clinic.
Premier Susan Holt, Health Minister Dr. John Dornan, and Horizon Health Network President and CEO Margaret Melanson were at the health centre to make the announcement.
“We’re excited to announce today that our government is committing $1.5 million toward the physical expansion of the Fundy Health Center and the growth of its healthcare team with another new nurse practitioner, as well as, three healthcare support staff, so that this facility will be able to attach the remaining 1,138 patients in this region to a permanent primary care home,” Holt said.
It is the first collaborative care clinic announced this year, but the 12th in a series of 30 promised throughout the Liberal mandate.
As part of the election campaign, Holt committed to one in St. Stephen in 2025—slated to be located on King Street—and a clinic in Blacks Harbour this year.
“We promised the people of this community back during the election that they would be a priority for collaborative care,” Holt said, speaking with reporters after the announcement. “So more than 1,100 people coming off the wait list to add to the 4000 patients that are already attached here means that everyone in Eastern Charlotte is going to be able to call Fundy (Health Centre) their primary care home. That’s meaningful, and that’s what New Brunswickers are asking from us.”
Holt said the timeline for the renovations are between 18 to 24 months, but will not impact the recruitment of health care professionals needed to move the clinic forward with its goals. Recruitment for the new positions are already underway.
Dornan said it is the first clinic to have a full plan on how to onboard the 1,138 patients needing primary care in Eastern Charlotte.
“It’s a place that you can count on to be here when you need it,” he said, speaking to a crowd gathered in the facility’s front entrance.
The additional space and help is welcome news to Kate Burkholder—one of the province’s first nurse practitioners who has been serving Eastern Charlotte for a little more than two decades.
“We know that we have a lack of physicians in the area, and we do have a lack of even nurse practitioners, and we can only do so much in the run of a day,” she said.
FHC also operates an access clinic, which provides care for non-urgent medical needs in order to divert patients away from emergency departments while awaiting attachment to a primary care provider.
“So, really looking forward to that,” Burkholder said, adding the collaborative care model being refined is an important advancement to the health care system in New Brunswick.
Burkholder said there is an impact that is felt health professionals by needing to turn people away because there aren’t enough resources.
“I’m constantly having calls from other areas saying, will you take me on? No, I can’t. I’m sorry. You know, this is the process,” she said.
Dornan said health care professionals were burning out.
“Nurse practitioners were leaving, physicians were leaving,” he said. “If you go to town hall meetings, they would tell us that, and we spend half our day on paperwork, half our day figuring out our overhead and we don’t get to bed at night.”
The province recently signed a physician agreement over four years, valued at $270 million. It also negotiated new contracts with nurses and nurse practitioners.
“So now they say to us, this is a good place to work, you respect us,” he said.
One more collaborative clinic is expected to be announced, according to Holt, in Saint Andrews.
