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Nine family health teams already funded for the next fiscal year
Published Mar 29, 2026 • Last updated 22 hours ago • 3 minute read
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Horizon’s North-End Wellness Centre is expected to see a new location to take more patients off the primary care waitlist. BRUNSWICK NEWS ARCHIVESArticle content
Horizon Health Network is facing the challenge of getting collaborative care clinic space ready quickly to keep up with its ambitious primary care strategy.
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After surpassing the strategy’s first-year target, Margaret Melanson, president and CEO of Horizon Health Network, acknowledged that the time it takes to renovate leased spaces for family health teams is a limiting factor right now.
“Our team has worked very hard, and I would say very aggressively, to try to lift these sites as quickly as possible,” Melanson told Brunswick News.
“One of the opportunities that we’ve tried to really embrace is hiring our staff, and so having staff available and finding places for staff to work, even while some of these renovations or new lease arrangements are being undertaken.”
In the first year of its strategy, Horizon secured funding for 10 family health teams to add staff, renovate existing clinical space and/or find new space to take more patients off the primary care waitlist.
More than 10,700 patients have been attached to these 10 family health teams so far, according to a recent presentation delivered to Horizon’s board of directors.
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“We’re trying to (expand primary care access) as rapidly as we can,” Horizon board chair Susan Harley said after last week’s board meeting.
“We’re signing leases. We are engaging in the construction work, and we’re hiring physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, all at the same time, so it’s full steam ahead.”
Over the past year, Horizon has hired 24 family physicians, 22 nurse practitioners and 129 other workers – including allied health professionals, nurses and administrative assistants – for its primary care program, according to Ashley Calvert, Horizon’s interim vice-president of community.
In January, Calvert told Brunswick News that four of the announced family health teams were already operating in newly renovated spaces. Those were Nordin (Miramichi), Mapleton (Moncton), Tantramar and Carleton North, although Horizon has since indicated the Tantramar team will move to a different site and that Nordin has outgrown its existing space.
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The Fredericton North clinic has moved into a brand-new space, while the St. Stephen and north-end Saint John family health teams are waiting for new locations.
Renovations are planned for the Fundy Health Centre in Blacks Harbour, while remodeling is almost complete at the Saint Andrews Wellness Centre.
“Nackawic is an existing location, but through the funding that we have received, we’re actually expanding into an adjacent second location within that site, which will allow us to expand and add additional resources,” Calvert told the board.
For at least one project, though, the timeline has appeared to shift.
Premier Susan Holt had initially indicated a target of early 2026 for the opening of new clinical space for the St. Stephen family health team. However, Saint Croix MLA Kathy Bockus recently said she’d heard from Melanson that the space won’t be ready until January 2027.
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When asked about this development, Holt recently told reporters that she’s hoping “we can go more quickly” and indicated they want to speed up design work.
Despite the lack of a new space, Health Minister John Dornan has indicated the St. Stephen family health team continues to add patients while physicians continue to practise “out of cramped quarters.”
Both Horizon and Vitalité health networks have committed to having all their patients attached to a primary care provider by 2029.
Vitalité started the transition to family health teams roughly two years earlier than Horizon. As of its latest community report in January, Vitalité had 91 per cent of the population it serves now attached to a primary care provider as of the end of 2025, with 30 family health teams already in place.
Funding has already been secured for nine additional family health teams, Calvert told the Horizon board. Another 16 teams are in the “early co-creation” phase.
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Next on the list for family health teams are Moncton (two), Grand Bay-Westfield, Hampton, Saint John, Kennebecasis Valley (two), Perth-Andover and Miramichi.
When asked if the nine already funded family teams will open within the next fiscal year, Calvert said, “Of the ones we have, I think we are confident that we will be able to see those all open in the next fiscal year. We are well underway for the ones that do have infrastructure needs, so that is our goal.”
Infrastructure is the “slowest piece” of the process, Calvert said, noting Horizon is creating a “playbook” through each project “that allows us to do this as fast as possible and as efficient as possible.”
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