To pool staff and address the short-term nurse shortage, the New Brunswick Nurses Union is proposing for temporary amalgamations of several services provided by both Horizon and Vitalité.
For the time being, some difficult decisions must be taken.
I’m not saying shut down a service completely and I’m not saying amalgamate and we’ll never see it again,but if we only have so many nursing resources in this province, we gotta use them properly,” union president Paula Doucet said on Tuesday.
The notion is completely opposed, according to Dr. Hubert Dupuis, president of Égalité santé en français, a group that supports maintaining language diversity in healthcare.
The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms states that both communities have “the right to distinct educational institutions and such distinct cultural institutions as are necessary for the preservation and promotion of those communities,” and he claimed that this goes against the idea of equality between New Brunswick’s linguistic communities.
Although both Horizon and Vitalité are required to provide bilingual services to patients, discussions of minimising linguistic duality frequently spark debate.
Érik Labelle Eastaugh, director of the International Observatory on Language Rights, said in an interview on Thursday said the temporary merger could work.
The fundamental goal of these two health authority is to grant each language community some autonomy and independence in the administration of its healthcare resources.
Depending on how it’s done, he said, the nurses’ union’s suggestion might be implemented while adhering to linguistic regulations.
The specific services that each health authority provides aren’t predetermined.
Therefore, the Minister has the ability under the legislation to decide which authority will be the sole provider of a particular service, according to Labelle Eastaugh.
On Wednesday, the health minister, Bruce Fitch, told Global News that he was open to the proposal.
It’s a fantastic idea, and I believe that as time goes on, you’ll see more and more resource sharing.
So I’m more than happy to take up that idea and have discussions, whether it’s the union or again some of the physicians,” he said.
However, according to Labelle Eastaugh, the removal of Vitalité’s board this summer may make it more difficult for the suggested interim mergers to take place.
The ability of Vitalité, which is currently operating under the control of (government appointed trustees), to respect and exercise the collective rights to management and control over health care that Vitalité is supposed to be exercising on behalf of the francophone community, according to him, is unclear under the current structure.
The provincial government is currently being sued by Égalité santé en français for the firings, which they claim violated their Charter rights.
Concerns about linguistic dualities are raised by the N.B. nurses union’s request to temporarily combine services.
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