Community run hospitals not the way to go, says N.B. Health Council

The Concerned Citizens of Charlotte County say they want to see the community take over the hospital in St. Stephen, and run it independently.

But Stphane Robichaud, chief executive officer of the New Brunswick Health Council, doesn't think that's the right move. He said the system should go in the other direction.

"If anything we need to move more and more toward a system approach where all of these resources in the province are very well co-ordinated," said Robichaud.

"Trying to separate the system into different entities is not a step in the right direction."

Time for change

Robichaud said because of the way thing have changed over the last few decades, the current health services no longer meet people's needs.

"When we first started offering health services we were mainly dealing with short term problems,broken legs. You go in for an operation. You got back home," said Robichaud.

But he added things are different now.

"Chronic conditions are a huge part of what we use our health services for. And how our health services are organized today no longer meets that reality."

Shift to community

Robichaud said across the countrythere has been more of a shift to community involvement. He said when people are directly involved is when they seeit's time for change.

"What we've seen is communities where there's been good citizen engagement, people come to realize that changes are required," he said.

"In 2016, what we realize today is that many many of our citizens need a service that can be offered by someone other than a doctor, but we haven't evolved to reflect that reality."

He said communities around the country have become better equipped to prevent chronic conditions, and that could help in New Brunswick too.

"Sometimes they might need a dietician, a social worker. We need to shift to meet these needs of our population, and a big part of the challenge is that we keep spending the money the same way we always have."