New Brunswick premier says progress made in efforts to improve health care, some targets met – New Brunswick

The New Brunswick government is reporting progress in its efforts to improve health care one year after announcing its first collaborative care clinic in Fredericton.

Premier Susan Holt told reporters Wednesday that 1,155 residents who previously had no primary care provider are now connected to that care team.

“The goal of 17,000 unattached patients is a cumulative goal of each of the clinics that we’ve announced. We’ve made progress towards that,” she said.

“I think we’re about a third of the way toward that one year in on the first clinics that we announced.”

She says her government has recruited 486 net new nurses and 67 net new doctors over the last year as well.

“Ending March 31st of 2026, we had the highest net increase in physicians in the province’s history,” she said.

As of March, the province is now reporting more than 127,000 people still waiting for a family doctor or nurse practitioner. Holt admits that the real numbers are probably higher.

“What we’re realizing, and I’m hoping can happen really quickly, is as we move each of these clinics to digital health records, then we can get a very clear picture of what New Brunswicker — by their Medicare number — is attached to what family physician or practice,” she said.

PC health critic Bill Hogan says the update isn’t as positive as it looks.

“I’d say there’s been minimal movement and certainly … it’s not moving at light speed and there’s a lot of work to be done,” he said.

But Health Minister John Dornan says tangible changes take time, and that the work is “far from finished.”

“Early in my mandate, I thought, ‘Well, collaborative care clinics are going to fix everything.’ It’s not quite that simple,” he said.

“They go a long way, but there’s lots of care opportunities adjacent to that.”

Holt says a 15th collaborative care clinic will be announced next week. The province has set a goal to open 30 such clinics.

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