New Brunswick Green Party leader David Coon says the N.B. Housing Corporation could be mandated to build long-term care homes faster to help alleviate the strain on the province’s hospitals. According to the Coalition for Seniors, 450 people were waiting in hospital for a long-term care placement as of Dec. 31, 2025. Last week, it was revealed a senior spent three days in an ambulance bay-turned-medical unit at Fredericton’s Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital. The unit is known as the Medical Transition Unit and was created over a year ago to help with overcrowding in the hospital. But the unit has no running water, proper washrooms, little privacy and patients have said the lights are on 24/7. Horizon’s data shows over a third of the hospital’s actual beds are being used by patients waiting for long-term care. Those people deserve better, Cecile Cassista says. “I’m not hanging around to watch our seniors lie in these kinds of conditions. I want change, and I want it now,” she said. Cassista, a long-time advocate for seniors, says those patients need to be assessed by the Department of Social Development faster. She’s also consistently advocated for a separate government department dedicated to seniors and their care. Coon says N.B. Housing knows how to build fast – the government organization is tasked with building affordable, public housing. “N.B. Housing builds public housing for people on low income,” he said. “The premier should give the mandate to N.B. Housing to build rapidly long-term care homes for people who are desperately in need, and free-up beds in our in our hospitals and to get those people out of the hospitals who are stuck there and declining.” Premier Susan Holt promised a long-term care plan is coming at some point this quarter. According to Horizon’s online dashboard, just one patient waiting in hospital for long-term care was discharged the week of Jan. 5. For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.
