The emergency room of the Sussex Health Centre has been closed overnight for the last 18 months as a temporary measure in response to staffing shortages, but voters in the town of just under 5,000 say the lack of 24-hour access is their top election issue.
“It’s one of the most important issues,” said Kathy Starkey. “As you age, you know, if you’ve got to travel an hour to get to an emerge, it’s life-threatening.”
“Health care needs to be looked at more closely.”
The issue has been highlighted recently after Grant Jordan suffered a heart attack in the parking lot 18 minutes after the ER closed for the night and had to be transported to Saint John where he received emergency surgery and received two splints.
Community member Denise Crossaboom said the ER can’t continue to operate on reduced hours.
“People’s lives are being lost, we need it open full-time,” she said.
“By the time you take the 45-minute ambulance ride to Saint John, it can mean the difference between life and death.”
In 2020, the government announced a plan to close Sussex and five other rural ERs overnight. That was abandoned in the face of public backlash, but many have seen reduced hours in recent years anyway.
Teri McMackin, the Green candidate for Sussex-Three Rivers, said that she’s been hearing about the hospital at nearly every door and that people feel betrayed.
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“We should all have access to timely health care and having this service right here in town is important to these people,” she said.
“I’m knocking on the doors and they’re telling me, I don’t want to travel to Moncton, I don’t want to travel to Saint John, or Shediac, or wherever else they have to go to get services.”
PC candidate Tammy Scott-Wallace, the incumbent for the area, said a plan is in place to restore service, hopefully sometime next year. That will involve a mix of advanced care paramedics, nurse practitioners and a “tele-doctor,” a remote doctor who can help other practitioners provide care if need be.
She said that people understand the ER won’t look like it had in prior decades.
“Our emergency room is changing and we never see it the way that it once was,” she said.
“I’m not getting fear, I’m not getting anger at the doors, I’m getting a lot of understanding. People do want to see the ER reopened here in Sussex, which is what we all want.”
In 2020, the plan to reduce hours at the ER spurred large protests and then-Tory MLA Bruce Northrup came out against the changes proposed by his own government. Northrup retired that year when a snap-election was called, but returns now to run for the Liberals. His choice to return is in large part due to the hospital.
“I feel that the present government has neglected Sussex Health Centre. They’ve neglected the ER and they’re not listening to the stakeholders,” he said.
“They have great ideas for this place, but they haven’t been listened to over the last four years.”
Northrup said practitioners working in the hospital want to see it used as a sort of training hospital for young doctors, which would help attract needed personnel.
Meanwhile, the Greens have promised greater local decision-making for health care services and McMackin says that a 24-hour, well-resourced ER is what people in the community want.
Neither the NDP nor People’s Alliance have announced candidates for the riding. The newly registered Libertarian Party of New Brunswick has nominated Wayne Wheeler.