Premier Blaine Higgs defends sweeping changes to health-care leadership

Premier Blaine Higgs is defending what he calls his "shock and awe" changes to New Brunswick's health-care system leadership last Friday.

He replaced the health minister, fired the head of the Horizon Health Network and replaced the boards of directors of both Horizon and Vitalité with a single trustee each.

Higgs says his actions demonstrate a suitable sense of urgency for a system in "crisis," which he contends wasn't coming across from those managing the system.

"We're going to always find people that resist change. But the time for changing our system and getting it on a road to improvement is now," he said Monday.

"And sometimes I know the shock and awe thing is difficult, but I think everyone realized that something has to be different."

The shakeup comes after a patient died in the waiting room of the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital's emergency department in Fredericton early Tuesday morning while waiting for care.

Witness John Staples said the man, a senior, had been waiting alone in a wheelchair, in visible discomfort for hours when he appeared to fall asleep. It was only during a routine check of people in the waiting room that a hospital employee realized the man had stopped breathing, he said.

There were 17 ER patients waiting to be admitted that day and the hospital was full, according to Higgs.

"We know hospital occupancy has always been a problem. We've had that before COVID. But are people being released [in] an appropriate [amount of] time? Do we have a flow through the system as needed, so we keep people moving because new people are coming in? All of these things are a process improvement, a flow, a management issue, and that's why I focus so much on that."

Higgs confirmed the results of the ongoing Horizon review of the patient's death will be made public. If he's not satisfied with the results, he will ask for an external review, he has said.

During Friday's news conference, Higgs announced Bruce Fitch replaces Dorothy Shephard as Health minister, while she takes over Social Development; Margaret Melanson replaces Dr. John Dornan as interim president and CEO of Horizon; and the government has appointed Suzanne Johnston and Gerald Richard as trustees for Horizon and Vitalité, respectively, replacing the boards, which included members elected by the public and appointed by government.

He was removing a "bureaucratic stalemate," he had said.

Asked Monday about his own role and the role of his office in watching the health-care system deteriorate, Higgs replied: "Well, I guess I'm not the first to watch it deteriorate, but I might be the first to act like this in the sense of urgency to make something change."

Higgs has been in office for four years. He won re-election with a majority government in September 2020 after calling a snap election following two years of leading the province's first minority government since 1920.