Murphy should stand his ground
Health Minister Michael Murphy is being pressed to designate the province's two, newly-merged regional health authorities as officially English and French institutions. An open letter from 100 prominent Acadians says ensuring the language of one of the authorities is French is a question of equality, not duality.
Murphy is correct to ignore such calls, which fly in the face of his mission to create a single, integrated health-care system that best serves New Brunswickers.
The foundation of Murphy's health plan must be to ensure that all New Brunswickers have timely and equal access to the health services they need. The system must also ensure that a French-speaking patient can be assured he will get served in the language of his choice, no matter where he accesses services. If a patient from Tracadie is treated at the N.B. Heart Centre in Saint John, there should be staff available to treat him in his native language.
The same goes for English patients. If someone from Fredericton is treated at the Dr. Georges L. Dumont Regional Hospital in Moncton, they must have confidence they will be treated in the language of their choice.
This largely already happens; certainly the two hospitals in Moncton offer bilingual services.
There is nothing in Murphy's reforms that will prevent hospitals from continuing to use one language or another as the working language of the institution. The minister is right to fear that official designate of health authorities by language could start an inevitable slide toward duality.
A dual health-care system is simply something we cannot afford.
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Comments (3)
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2 - If those health authorities are not linguistically based, then why put both of them within an hour's drive away in North East NB? Why not one in Bathurst (North) and one in Fredercton (South)? If the purpose is to create one health system in NB why not completely discard all health autorities?
3 - Health authorities under the Murphy vision are nothing but convenient puppets with the Minister acting as puppet master.
4 - The proposed reform is a reflection of a dangerous Murphy knows best attitude to health care in NB. He is a lawyer and a politician, not a health care specialist.
The 'language' in any and all hospitals should be the language of the client/patient; guess what "that is exactly how it is now within our Province"!!! I've had very recent cause to use both Moncton hospitals and in both cases the medical & nursing staff were observed speaking both languages as situation called for. I know this to be the case in both Bathurst & Campbellton also.
Only complaint I have is patient records (C'ton) not being in patient's language!! Still no big deal!!
Whoever is making a mountain that is out-of-a-molehill should be severely chastised for creating 'much-to-do-about-nothing'!! The editor of the above letter should NEVER mentioned a figure or geographical area; the T&T management should have a discussion with the writer because all that is occuring is causing division where none exists!!!