{"id":334941,"date":"2025-12-09T17:00:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334941\/"},"modified":"2025-12-09T17:00:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-09T17:00:09","slug":"only-one-third-of-er-patients-are-seen-on-time-auditor-general-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/334941\/","title":{"rendered":"Only one-third of ER patients are seen on time, auditor general says"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Text<\/p>\n

Listen to this article<\/p>\n

Estimated 4 minutes<\/p>\n

The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

Only one-third of patients in New Brunswick hospital emergency departments are seen by a doctor within the appropriate amount of time, according to a new report by the province\u2019s auditor general.<\/p>\n

Even patients with the most urgent need to see a doctor immediately were only assessed quickly enough in 56 per cent of cases, the audit found.<\/p>\n

The Department of Health\u2019s performance indicators are incomplete and its budget doesn\u2019t match its service delivery needs, Paul Martin added in the report presented to a legislative committee Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur audit work concluded that the Department of Health does not have effective oversight mechanisms in place to ensure timely access to, and adequate reporting on, emergency health services,\u201d the report said.<\/p>\n

The audit analyzed more than 1.7 million emergency department visits per year between April 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2024.<\/p>\n

Another 470,000 visits weren\u2019t analyzed because of incomplete records.<\/p>\n

\"TwoThe auditor general’s new report on emergency health services analyzed more than 1.7 million emergency department visits per year between April 1, 2020 and Dec. 31, 2024. (CBC)<\/p>\n

During that period, the department failed to establish an accountability framework, as required by law, for the province\u2019s two regional health authorities, Martin found.<\/p>\n

That was despite sweeping changes to health care governance by then-premier Blaine Higgs after a patient died while waiting for care in a hospital emergency department in July 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time for changing our system and getting it on a road to improvement is now,\u201d Higgs said at the time.<\/p>\n

A provincial health plan adopted by the Progressive Conservative government a year earlier, in 2021, had no specific objectives to address gaps in emergency care access, Martin found.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The accountability framework was only put in place in April 2025, six months after Premier Susan Holt\u2019s Liberals took power.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In a point-by-point response to Martin\u2019s audit included in the report, the department said it agreed with all of his recommendations and was implementing them, with some due by the end of April 2026 and others likely to take as long as 2029-30.<\/p>\n

The department will establish key indicators, work with the health authorities on collecting and reporting data and address risks to timely service, it said.<\/p>\n

Patients going to hospital emergency departments are triaged to assess how urgent their condition is on a scale of one to five.<\/p>\n

A level-one patient requires resuscitation and should be seen by a doctor immediately, while those in the other categories \u2013 emergent, urgent, less urgent and non-urgent \u2013 have wait-time standards ranging from 15 to 120 minutes.<\/p>\n

Triaging should happen within 10 minutes of a patient\u2019s arrival but \u201cthis target has not been adopted\u201d by the department or the two health authorities, the audit said.<\/p>\n

\"PremierAuditor General Paul Martin’s new report on emergency health services was released on Tuesday. Martin has made recommendations to the department of health and they’ve committed to implementing all of them. (Victoria Walton\/CBC)<\/p>\n

No Vitalit\u00e9 Health hospitals record a patient\u2019s arrival time and only six out of 13 Horizon hospitals did so.<\/p>\n

\u201cArrival to triage is a critical time because patients have not yet been assessed, and their priority level is not yet known. Any delay in treatment could pose health risks and impact \u00a0 patient outcomes,\u201d Martin wrote.<\/p>\n

Only one-quarter of the patients triaged at level two or level three urgency were seen by doctors within the target wait times, and almost 250,000 patients left emergency departments without seeing doctors during the audit period.<\/p>\n

When patients die, the department doesn\u2019t look at what their wait times were, the audit noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a missed opportunity for the department to understand contributing factors into these cases and how strategies and resources may contribute to improved outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Martin also found a decline in the available treatment spaces in emergency departments over the more than four years of the audit.<\/p>\n

That can often mean patients aren\u2019t seen even when a doctor is available, he told MLAs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also said the department\u2019s base budget formula for emergency care hasn\u2019t changed since 2008 and is based on outdated assumptions.<\/p>\n

The department was \u201cunable to clearly demonstrate how the base budget amounts were calculated,\u201d he said, though he noted the Liberal government launched a review of the formula that it is expected to finish next spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 4 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":{"0":"post-334941","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-healthcare"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}