Health care

Prioritizing accessible, quality care to ensure the well-being of every resident, now and in the future.

On this page:

Overview and measurements

Accessible, quality health care is essential to the well-being of every New Brunswicker. Measurable outcomes focused on enhancing services, reducing wait times and ensuring that care is available closer to home will keep us on track to make health care more accessible, sustainable and effective for everyone. 

 

Increase the number of people with a doctor or nurse practitioner<br>2024 state: 79%<br>2028 goal: 85%
Increase the number of people with a doctor or nurse practitioner
2024 state: 79%
2028 goal: 85%
Increase access to doctor or nurse practitioner within 5 days<br>2024 state: 31.4%<br>2028 goal: 37.4%
Increase access to doctor or nurse practitioner within 5 days
2024 state: 31.4%
2028 goal: 37.4%
Prevent growth of the nursing home waitlist<br>2024 state: 1,088<br>2028 goal: Steady at 1,088
Prevent growth of the nursing home waitlist
2024 state: 1,088
2028 goal: Steady at 1,088

Return to top of page

Commitments

Care in your community

  • Establish and support 30 community care clinics that offer local, collaborative care from a variety of health professionals in one place when you need it.
  • Provide dedicated non-clinical staff and administrative support to these clinics to ensure health care providers are focused on patients, not paperwork.
  • Use hospitals to their fullest potential by increasing the time that operating rooms are open.
  • Invest in modern technology, including centralized waitlists and standardized digital records management systems, to facilitate the seamless and secure exchange of patient information among health-care providers, regions, the regional health authorities, and community care clinics.

Return to top of page

Caring for health-care professionals

  • Create a multi-pronged plan developed for all health-care professionals to improve working conditions, prioritize support for their wellness, and increase retention.

  • Deliver retention payments to show our respect for ​​​nurses ​and examine other tools that aid retention and recruitment.

    Progress and measurement: COMPLETE

    On December 3, 2024 government committed to delivering $10,000 retention payments to permanent full-time and part-time nurses as a first step to address the ongoing nursing staffing shortage.

    Read the news release
  • Work with communities and experts to ensure local realities are respected and factored into any plan to retain and recruit health-care professionals.
  • Improve the compensation model for doctors and primary care providers, including fair pay for those who perform after-hours care.
  • Work with Dalhousie Medicine New Brunswick and Centre de formation médicale du Nouveau-Brunswick to create more training and residency seats.
  • Implement innovative approaches to recruit health-care professionals, including nurses and doctors.
  • Leverage existing health-care knowledge by working with regulators to improve foreign credential recognition for nurses, doctors, and other health-care professionals already in our province and looking to call New Brunswick home.
  • Review and expand health-care professionals’ scope of practice to optimize their roles.

Return to top of page

Care at home and long-term care

  • Expand the Nursing Homes Without Walls model and ensure that those who want to stay at home can do so for as long as possible.
  • Ensure all existing nursing home beds are accessible by filling staffing gaps by investing in wages for personal support workers and resident attendants ultimately resulting in increased hours of care.
  • Review and update the process and standards for home care allocation and invest in increased wages for homecare workers.
  • Increase comfort and clothing allowance for seniors from $150 to $200.
  • Establish sector standards and transparent reporting practices with a robust system for complaints that leads to quick responses and better overall delivery to ensure our seniors continue to receive excellent care.
  • Implement a caregiver benefit for unpaid and informal caregivers of aging family members, giving caregivers $250 a month to recognize their contribution.
  • Work with communities to develop and implement a strategy that better supports those living with Alzheimer’s and dementia.

Return to top of page

Health care for all

  • Provide the RSV vaccine for free for seniors and vulnerable people.
  • Increase access to fertility treatments by funding one round of IVF, which is in line with jurisdictions across Canada.
  • Expand midwifery services and allocating funding to support training and education.
  • Make contraception free.
  • Implement at-home pap tests for cervical cancer screening.
  • Ensure New Brunswickers can better access abortion services by amending regulation 84–20.


    Progress and measurement: COMPLETE

    On November 7, 2024 government approved changes to Regulation 84-20 that will allow Medicare to cover the cost of surgical abortions performed outside of hospitals.

    Read the news release
  • Ensure billing process aligns with best practices to provide members of the LGBTQI2S+ community with quality health and mental health care—including longer appointment times and gender-affirming care.
  • Invite First Nations leaders to create a bilateral forum and ongoing process with the goal of achieving culturally safe and equitable health care for Indigenous people in New Brunswick.
  • Support, collaborate, and engage with First Nations health care leaders in achieving their Health Transformation design and implementation process.

Return to top of page

Mental health

  • Ensure mental health professionals are located in as many community care clinics as possible to ensure mental health is being treated as primary care and reduce the frequency of acute mental health challenges.
  • Increase residency seats for psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, and develop a retention and training plan for psychologists, counsellors, and other mental health professionals, specifically within schools.
  • Invest in community-based case management approaches for front-line service providers currently providing mental health support.
  • Create a Mental Health Advocate position to ensure New Brunswickers struggling with mental health and navigating the system have a champion.
  • Expand mental health court access to ensure the promotion of alternative pathways for justice.
  • Work in partnership with First Nations to co-create and implement mental health and addiction programs that meet culturally safe First Nation service and practice standards of care.
  • Ensure billing practices align with best practices to provide members of the LGBTQI2S+ community with quality health and mental health care—including longer appointment times and gender-affirming care.
  • Invest in treatment beds throughout the province, ensure there is a bed for anyone who wants it when they want it, and ensure that there is an optional continuum of care for those exiting treatment.

Return to top of page


 

© Government of New Brunswick. All rights reserved.