How many N.B. patients don't have a doctor? It's complicated, MLAs told
Deputy minister tells committee of MLAs ‘truth lies somewhere between’ different primary care statistics
A top health-care official took members of the New Brunswick legislature on a tour Tuesday of the various ways of measuring how many people in the province have — or lack — access to primary care.
Different metrics, it turned out, tell different stories.
"The questions seem very straightforward, but they are not," Eric Beaulieu, the deputy minister of health, told MLAs on the public accounts committee.
He was responding to questions from Green Leader David Coon about targets in a federal-provincial funding agreement signed by the previous Progressive Conservative government of Blaine Higgs.
That three-year agreement committed the province to helping more New Brunswickers see doctors or nurse practitioners within five days and to reduce the number of vacant doctor positions.
But with a year to go, the numbers on five-day waits appear to be worse, while the vacancy statistics haven't budged, Beaulieu told Coon.
"It would probably would be more accurate [to measure] the total physician positions we have in the province, rather than vacancies," he said.
Beaulieu also acknowledged that the 104,000 people registered for the N.B. Health Link service — people who have "signalled" to the province that they lack a primary care provider — does not represent the actual number of people who don't have one.
A survey by the New Brunswick Health Council estimated that 180,000 New Brunswickers lack access to a permanent primary care provider.
"There's a range, obviously," Beaulieu said.
"We are very cognizant that the truth lies somewhere between those numbers."
Coon said he was disappointed with the deputy minister's answers.
"These are targets they set for themselves. They set them as easy to achieve targets, as they always do in these federal-provincial agreements."
Progressive Conservative MLA Rob Weir told Beaulieu the difference between the two figures is "very, very significant."
Measuring access to primary care is a key metric for the new Liberal government.
In her recent state of the province speech, Premier Susan Holt promised to increase the number of people with a doctor or nurse practitioner and to increase the number who have access to care within five days.
But Tuesday's session with Beaulieu shows just what a moving target those objectives can be.
The federal-provincial agreement on primary care allocated $60 million over three years for family health services.
It set a goal of increasing the number of people with a care provider, who can get access to that provider within five days, from 50.8 per cent to 55.8 per cent by March 2026.
But a recent health council report said only 31.5 per cent of the overall population can get access to care within five days.
The federal-provincial agreement also committed the province to reduce the number of doctor vacancies from 167.4 to 162.4.
Beaulieu said as of last March that number was still stuck at 167.4 — even though there's been a net gain of 89 doctors over the last three years, and an increase of 55 so far in the current 2024-25 fiscal year.
The deputy minister said the number of physician positions changes every year based on new programs that are launched, so the starting point for measurement is constantly shifting.
"Those numbers should have been at their fingertips," Coon said.
"It took forever to get the answers and a couple of tries. That's very worrisome."
N.B. Health Link, run by Medavie Health Services New Brunswick, allows people with no primary care provider to register and seek medical appointments as a temporary solution while they wait to be placed with a permanent doctor or nurse practitioner.
But of the 104,000 people registered, 39,000 still don't have access to N.B. Health Link's services, Beaulieu said.
On the other hand, he said 15,000 people who have signed up for N.B. Health Link since it launched in 2022 have been moved out of that system after getting a permanent primary care provider.
"That continues to be the overall objective, to find a permanent medical home for every citizen in this province," he said.
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