New Brunswick Liberals pledge overhaul of recruitment for health professionals

ST. STEPHEN, N.B. — New Brunswick’s Liberals are pledging to overhaul the way the province recruits health professionals should the party win the Oct. 21 provincial election.

Leader Susan Holt, campaigning Tuesday in St. Stephen, N.B., said the party would change the compensation model for doctors and increase the number of residency spaces for doctors in training.

The Liberal plan also calls for streamlining the process for recognizing the credentials of foreign-trained doctors and other health professionals.

Though she released few other details, Holt confirmed that 10 additional physician training seats at Dalhousie University in Halifax would cost $430,000 each year.

“We need to innovate in how we recruit health-care professionals," Holt said. "A centralized departmental model that continues to focus on vacancies instead of health-care professionals hasn’t worked."

She said the recruitment plan includes calling on local communities and health professionals to help with presenting offers that might appeal to individual doctors and other health professionals.

"When we identify a health professional that wants to practise in New Brunswick, we find the role that fits them — we don’t try to fit them into our box," Holt told reporters.

"We need to make sure we are tailoring our offer to what the health-care professionals want to do to be here, and we have to employ a tem of people to do it."

Holt said the Liberal recruitment program would also do a better job of tracking the number of job offers.

“It’s about getting out there and aggressively head hunting the talent that we want," she said. "We need to supercharge our recruitment process because we are losing the recruitment battle with other provinces.”

The latest announcement adds to previous Liberal commitments to establish at least 30 new community care clinics to help cut primary-care wait-times and introducing a program to provide retention payments to nurses.

On Monday, Progressive Conservative Leader Blaine Higgs promised to reduce health-care wait-times by expanding the scope of practice of nurse practitioners, registered nurses, registered psychiatric nurses, paramedics and pharmacists.

But the party did not provide details, saying it would work with medical professionals and their governing bodies to "evaluate all scopes of practice."

On Tuesday afternoon, Green Party Leader David Coon travelled to the Memramcook Institute outside Moncton, N.B., where he highlighted his party’s commitment to create a provincial heritage plan.

"This plan will prioritize the preservation and celebration of New Brunswick’s rich historical and cultural assets such as buildings, our covered bridges and our lighthouses," Coon said in a statement.

"We have rich heritage assets all over the province that have been left to deteriorate rather than be preserved and restored."

Megan Mitton, the Green's deputy leader, has advocated for public ownership of the Memramcook Institute, which she says was recently sold to a private developer for $1 million.

The historic Acadian building was once College St-Joseph, the first French-language, degree-granting college in Atlantic Canada. Founded in 1864, the College hosted the first Acadian National Convention in 1881. It later became the Memramcook Institute, which housed a school and resort for studying French until 2012.

"Such an important piece of Acadian heritage was sold by the Higgs government for next to nothing, with the information of the sale then hidden from the public," Mitton said in a statement. "A Green government would buy it back at the first opportunity, and ensure it benefits the public."

Meanwhile, Higgs did not have any campaign events scheduled for Tuesday. A party official confirmed he spent the day preparing for a televised leaders debate on Wednesday night.

Higgs, who is seeking a third term in office, is expected to square off against Holt and Coon at the Capitol Theatre in Moncton.

CBC TV will begin broadcasting the debate at 6 p.m. ADT from the Empress Room. The event will also be carried live to an online audience cbc.ca.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 24, 2024.

The Canadian Press