New Brunswick Medical Society President Concerned About Growing Patient Waiting Lists – New Brunswick | The Canadian News

The director of the New Brunswick Medical Society says that without enough staff to deal with the backlog of clinical patients being created while hospitals are in the red phase, there is growing concern for patient safety.

“I am concerned about the morbidity and mortality of patients as they sit on my waiting list waiting to see me,” said Dr. Mark MacMillan, president of the society and a gastroenterologist in Fredericton.

MacMillan said some doctors have not even caught up with the backlog of hospital clinic patients created since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, let alone dealing with growing waiting lists with hospitals in the red phase.

“With the constant staff shortages we are experiencing, catching up can be next to impossible. We are getting to the point now that we are in quite a significant crisis and as physicians, we are very concerned about our patients, ”MacMillan said.

According to Horizon Health Network, the volume of patients seen in some hospital clinics has dropped while hospitals are in the red phase.

Being in red means that all non-essential health care and services will be “significantly reduced or temporarily suspended.”

This includes outpatient care, professional services such as physical therapy, non-urgent X-rays and scans, and elective surgeries.

MacMillan said efforts are being made to rank priority patients, but waiting lists for procedures like colonoscopies are increasing and he is concerned that some patients will not be diagnosed in a timely manner.

“There will come a point where we will have to reduce the number of people that we can get through the colon cancer screening program. I mean, people have positive results and they need to have these tests done, but if we don’t have the resources to be able to staff the rooms to do it, they will have to wait, ”he said.

He said that without adequate support staff to help clear waiting lists once hospitals go out of the red, patients will likely have to wait longer to rebook appointments.

New Brunswick Nurses Union Director Paula Doucet said that in the past six months, nurses have worked nearly twice as much overtime compared to last year.

Doucet said he does not think it is a “realistic expectation” to expect the backlog of patients currently being created to subside as the pandemic persists through a fourth wave.

Doucet said that some nurses were already being pulled from clinics to work in other parts of the hospital due to staff shortages before the pandemic.

“When we come out of a red phase, it’s not like we magically have more staff.”

He said that until more staff are hired or the province changes the way it provides health care services, longer wait times for services are likely to persist.

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