John McGarry rates Horizon Health Network's performance: 'maybe it's a C+'

The Horizon health Network is one year into a five year plan, andJohnMcGarry, the chief executive officer ratedperformance so far at a B then changedhis mind, "maybe it's a C+."

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At a board meeting on Thursday, McGarrysaid there is lots of room for improvement, but getting mixed messages from the government doesn't help.

McGarry says thosemixed messages overthepast few weeks haveleft the Horizon Networkunable to make decisions on future spending.

"A few weeks ago it was, 'health care's going to be protected'. Then a week or so ago it was, 'Well, health care's got some efficiencies it can do,' and then today I hear, 'health care is going to be cut,'" saidMcGarry.

"And I'm thinking well it went from protected, to efficiencies, to cut what is it? So that's why we haven't done any work on our budget, because we have no idea what any of that language means."

Horizon Health Network's budget last year was over $500 million and at itsquarterly board meeting on Thursday, members heard the need for more even money to pay for a $30 million list of infrastructure problems.

Room for improvement

"Things like roofsor HVAC systems, those kind of things are on our deferred maintenance list, but often don't get addressed until something critical happens with them," saidAndrea Seymour, Horizon's vicepresident corporate.

The board also heard about successes in meeting cleanliness targets, but failures in reducing wait times for youths with mental health problems.

The target is 90 days, but the reality is 11 months. However,the number of mental health patientsunder the age of 17waitingin Moncton has been reduced from 180 to 40.

The emergency room wait times for patients rated level 3meaning those with less urgent needsthat can escalateis 1.5hours. That'sthree times higher than thenational average of30 minutes.

Wait times for cardiac electrophysiology has a target of90 days set by the Canadian Cardiovascular Society. A New Brunswick patient can wait 440 days.