Miramichi Paliative Care Lags Other Regions

Miramichi, March 8, 2012

With information obtained under the right to information act, these are the stats on staffing in palliative care units across the province.  In October, 4 East of the Miramichi hospital saw it's role changed to primarily an "alternative level of care" unit, and 9 nurses at the hospital were given layoff notices at that time.  Since then, Miramichi's patient to nurse ratio on 4E has dropped from 1:1.5 to 1:0.89, far below all the other hospitals in the province.

Critics of the changes, including Dr. Gerard Losier, pointed out that no other hospitals were seeing cuts to their palliative care units and could not understand why Miramichi was being targeted.  MLA Bill Fraser says the answer is more nursing homes, making room for more acute care of patients who need it.

Hospital	Palliative	Other	Total Beds	RNs	LPNs	PCAs	patient-nurse ratio	comments
Miramichi (Oct/11)	4	25	29	16.7	12.57	4.2	1:1.5	4E was 4 palliative, 25 family
Miramichi (Mar/12)	4	25	29	8.8	12.57	4.66	1:0.89	4E now 4 palliative, 25 alternative level of care
Georges Dumont	6	0	6	10.75	0	0	1:1.79	Palliative only
Chaleur	6	0	6	6	2.8	0	1:4.7	Palliative only
Campbelton	6	0	6	6.1	6.4	0	1:2.08	Palliative only
Moncton	7	24	31	25.78	14.9	2.4	1:3.9	Palliative and family
Saint John	8	0	0	9.4	.8	.24	1:1.30	Palliative only
Everett Chalmers	8	20	28	23.1	10	0	1:1.18	Palliative and family