The union representing nurses in New Brunswick says its members are worried about a recent lawsuit by the family of a man who died in a Fredericton ER in 2022.

Darrell Mesheau, 78, was in the ER waiting room at the Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital for nearly seven hours before he was found unresponsive.

Two nurses are now named in a lawsuit filed with the Court of King’s Bench. The suit, which also names the health authority, says Mesheau’s death was caused by the “reckless and outrageous acts and omissions” of Horizon Health Network and its staff.

Paula Doucet, the president of the New Brunswick Nurses Union, says nurses shouldn’t be to blame.

“Nurses go to work every day trying to do the best that they can in the circumstances they’re working under. It’s no secret to anyone in New Brunswick that we are in a severe nursing shortage,” Doucet said.

Doucet says other nurses in the province are now “very scared” they too could be sued one day.

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“They are absolutely doing the best that they can under these circumstances and just the thought that potentially they can be named in lawsuits for doing their job to the best of their ability under the circumstances that they’re tasked with is very frightening,” she said.

Emergency room physician Dr. Yogi Sehgal says he knows a handful of nurses who are considering quitting if the lawsuit goes ahead.

“I can’t see us functioning as a proper emergency room with even more nurses leaving,” Sehgal said.

Both he and Doucet extended their condolences to the Mesheau family. But Sehgal is questioning whether suing nurses is the solution.

“If the family wants to improve the situation to the point where we can avoid situations like this in the future, this is certainly not going to accomplish that,” he said.

Provincial politicians are also keeping an eye on the situation. Premier Blaine Higgs announced Saturday that he would pursue legislation further protecting health-care workers from being named in lawsuits.

Higgs said that if health-care professionals have done their job in good faith and to the best of their abilities, they should be able to have the confidence that the government “has their back.”

New Brunswick Liberal Leader Susan Holt is also in favour of the legislation — stressing that liability shouldn’t rest on health-care workers.

“It’s the government’s liability and responsibility for the services that are being delivered,” she said.

The lawyer representing Mesheau’s family declined an interview with Global News.

The two nurses who are named in the lawsuit were cleared of negligence in an inquest last spring.

— with a file from The Canadian Press