Patients: Make Health Care a Budget Priority

(Fredericton, NB) – New Brunswick patients believe that their doctor is working hard and that recruiting more physicians should take priority over health care cutbacks in the next provincial budget. These are the results of a survey of New Brunswick patients conducted earlier this month by the New Brunswick Medical Society.

“The doctors of New Brunswick are leaders in offering solutions to the challenges facing the province’s health care system,” said Dr. Robert Rae, President of the New Brunswick Medical Society. “When asked, the top priority for patient’s in the provincial budget was recruiting more physicians to meet the growing demand facing our health care system,” said Rae.

70% of patients stated that they believe their doctor’s workload is somewhat or very heavy. 8 out of 10 patients want the Alward Government to spend more on recruiting new doctors to the health care system. The survey also found that more than 50,000 New Brunswick patients still do not have a family physician.

Nearly half of patients surveyed point to waste and mismanagement as the key driver for the growing financial burden confronting the health care system.

“Patients and physicians have meaningful solutions to everyday problems to the way health care is delivered. The start-stop approach to implementing electronic patient records, effectively dealing with long term care patients in hospitals and adopting strategies that work in our health care system are just some of the areas where we could be doing so much better for patients in next week’s budget,” said Rae.

“Patients and physicians recognize that good quality health care costs, but poor quality health care costs even more,” explained Dr. Rae.

Note: The survey of 600 New Brunswick patients has a margin of error of +/- 4.0% and was conducted between March 8th and 14th, 2012 by Continuum Research.

-30-

For more information, please contact Mara Mallory, New Brunswick Medical Society at (506) 458-8860 or at mmallory@nbms.nb.ca