health care update

Premier Susan Holt and Health Minister John Dornan provided a health-care update at a news conference Wednesday that provided transparent but varying numbers in relation to how the province is doing in reaching its health-care targets.

The update presented bumps in the road that delayed progress, such as medical record system changes and some clinics experiencing space or recruitment issues, according to Holt who says progress is not as speedy as she would like. She and Dornan spoke about three clinics that were announced about a year ago as well as staffing numbers of health-care professionals.

Collaborative-care clinics

At the first clinic, the Fredericton North Family Health Team, 1,155 patients out of a targeted 1,600 were attached since April 7, 2025. Holt said a couple more physicians will join the team in June 2026, which the clinic hopes will help hit the target goal of 1,600.

The second clinic, the Lamèque Community Health Centre, has met a roadblock.

“For Lamèque, it’s a situation with our health data and our list of patients. Now that we are pushing to have computerized systems of our health data in each clinic, we realized that we had information of patients that did not exist anymore, that moved, or that do not need services anymore, so at this point they have a decrease of 73 patients, but they had a goal of 3,700 patients when we announced the clinic on April 9, 2025,” said Holt.

She expects the number of attached patients to change rapidly within the coming months because of updated computerized systems and better care spaces. Holt still expects the attachment goal to be reached in 3 years. Two physicians will be added to that location as well.

The third, Tantramar Primary Health Care Clinic, was announced on April 15, 2025. Holt said that at the time her team committed to attaching everyone in the town within a year.

“The team at Horizon was optimistic that they could do that, but at this point we have not reached that goal,” said Holt.

The actual amount attached was just 277, falling short of the 1,000 patient attachment goal. Holt said the shortfall was a result of facility and space limitations as well as cleaning up finalized patient lists.

It has been just over a year since the launch of the Holt government’s first clinic to operate under a collaborative care clinic model, before which the Premier said 30 clinics would be reached during her term.

Holt said a fifteenth clinic will be announced next week, placing her government at the halfway mark on that general promise, and will be the fourth clinic announced this calendar year. Holt expects an additional 8 to launch by the end of 2026 and her government feels “very optimistic” about meeting the 30-clinic goal.

As of March 31, 2026, 127,177 individuals remain on the waitlist for permanent attachment to a health-care provider.

Staffing of health-care professionals

“When we came into government, we were very clear that the health-care system needed to be stabilized because we needed to care for the people who were caring for us,” said Holt. “One of our very first moves was to provide [nurses] a retention bonus to ask them to stay with us as we make changes to the system so that the pressure they were experiencing by working short was relieved.”

Holt says her team has been looking closely at retention data, which was not only good news, but record-setting.

Nurse turnover at Horizon Health Network improved significantly since April 2025 and stabilized at 0.93 percent, down from an average of 5.54 percent the year prior. Holt said the turnover rates have been even higher in previous years.

“That stability in our healthcare system … the exiting has ceased, the retention bonuses we believe did what they were to do and have allowed our recruitment team to catch up and add significantly more health-care professionals,” said Holt.

The Vitalite Health Network’s turnover rates are a bit different because the population is smaller and some position qualifications are different. Their turnover rate is at 4.16 percent, and the nurse practitioner turnover rate is at 0 percent since July 2025.

“We see really positive movement in retention of our nurses,” Holt said.

A total of 827 registered and licensed practical nurses were hired and 358 exited or retired, resulting in a net gain of 469.

In the province’s last fiscal year, 67 net new doctors were added to the system, the highest net increase in New Brunswick’s history. In specific, 153 doctors were hired and 86 retired or exited.

Premier Holt said they are facing staffing issues in Zone 5 Campbellton, Zone 2 Saint John, and Zone 3 Fredericton, as well as Ambulance New Brunswick. She said special efforts are being made and her team is looking into ways to address these gaps.

Government of New Brunswick-provided data tables for hires and exits of health-care professionals by Zone and full details about the health-care update can be found here.