Nouvelles

Telegraph-Journal
p. A4, jeudi, 12 mars 2009

Health system opponents say changes haven't saved money

Adam Huras

 

Hubert Dupuis, chairman of Égalité santé en français au Nouveau-Brunswick, took aim at the cost of amalgamating the regional health authorities into two entities to replace the previous eight.

Last year while announcing the changes, Murphy told the legislature the amalgamations would save the health system millions of dollars.

"There has been evidence that it's simply not the case," Dupuis said.

Quoting a Telegraph-Journal article, Dupuis said executives and board members of the new authorities have racked up nearly a quarter of a million dollars in travel expenses and allowances since the new Regional Health Authority A and Regional Health Authority B came into existence.

The total cost of executive travel and board members' travel and pay over the three months was $241,483.

The francophone committee has continually argued that the decision to reduce the number of regional health authorities in the province had taken away governance of health care from francophones and resulted in an unfair distribution of specialized services between mainly English- and mainly French-speaking regions.

The Égalité santé en français au Nouveau-Brunswick has since launched a constitutional challenge to the changes.

Although maintaining they are not seeking duality in health care, but rather equality between anglophone and francophone access, Dupuis suggested the province did not provide details on the cost of dual system versus the new system.

"They said (duality) that it is very, very costly, well then, what are the numbers?" he said. "They must have proven this to say that, so we want to see it.

"I think often the politicians sell this as 'if we put something in a francophone region, this is a cost, but if we put it in an anglophone region, it's investing'," Dupuis said.

Murphy maintains that the changes were made to save the province millions of dollars by reducing the duplication of services.

The minister said francophone input into the health care system remains the same.

Michel Doucet, lawyer for the committee said that both parties are now in the process of disclosing documents and have accepted a schedule to have that process completed in the coming days.

Two weeks in June have also been set aside for discovery.

"If everything goes as expected in the agenda which we agreed to, the matter will be set for trial in September and by this time next year "¦ we probably would have the matter dealt with in the Court of Queen's Bench in New Brunswick," Doucet said. "We should be expecting a decision at that point."