New Brunswick premier touts new health clinics, says there is more to do

New Brunswick Premier Susan Holt speaks during a news conference on health care in Fredericton on Wednesday April 29, 2026. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Eli Ridder

FREDERICTON — New Brunswick’s Liberal government is touting its progress on opening new clinics, hiring doctors and halting nurse turnover -- but officials admit that serious challenges remain as thousands of patients are without a primary care provider.

Premier Susan Holt held a news conference Wednesday to provide an update on the five-year health plan her government announced last year, saying New Brunswickers “deserve to have accountability and transparency on what’s happening in the health-care system.”

“It’s not enough to make an announcement about good news to kick off a clinic. You’ve got to come back a year later and tell people how you’re doing and how it’s going, and where it’s doing well, and where maybe it isn’t going well.”

Holt said her government is nearly halfway to its goal of setting up 30 collaborative care clinics before the end of its first term in office.

Last year the province launched 11 of the clinics -- which bring together doctors, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and specialists -- and the 15th is scheduled to open next week.

However, Holt said her government has fallen short in some areas.

One of the new clinics launched last year aimed to provide primary care in a southeast town to roughly 1,000 patients on a wait-list. But Holt said only 277 people have been attached to that clinic, adding that it didn’t have enough physical room so planning is underway for a new, larger space.

In the capital, the Fredericton North Clinic attached 1,155 patients during its first year of operation, short of its goal of serving 1,600.

A government spokesperson later confirmed that as of March 31 there were 127,177 people province-wide on a wait-list for a family doctor or nurse practitioner.

Officials have said one of the biggest challenges facing health care in New Brunswick is retaining workers and attracting new ones.

But the province had its highest-ever net increase of physicians in the last fiscal year ending March 31, said Holt. Sixty-seven new doctors were added to the system, including 15 family physicians.

Nurse turnover at the Horizon Health Network dropped from more than five per cent on average to below one per cent last year. Holt said $10,000 retention bonuses offered in 2025 likely helped.

The premier said she also backed efforts by New Brunswick’s health networks to explore leveraging artificial intelligence.

“We have a shortage of health-care professionals, and we want to put them to the best use at the patient’s bedside -- not spending all their time charting or doing administrative work,” the premier said.

Health Minister John Dornan said Wednesday that 26 per cent of the 33 initiatives in the 2025 health-care plan have been completed and the rest are underway.

“Our work is far from finished,” Dornan said. “Real transformation takes time, but we remain focused on delivery and improvements New Brunswickers expect and deserve.”

Bill Hogan, health critic for the Opposition Progressive Conservatives, says the update lacked substantive improvements for health care.

“All we ever seem to hear from government is what they’re going to do,” Hogan said in an interview Wednesday, adding that more than 25 per cent of New Brunswickers are on the wait-list for primary care.

“So I don’t think there’s any cause to celebrate anything.”

Hogan said the province needs to investigate whether it’s getting value from each dollar spent on health care.

In the latest budget, the Holt government allocated about $4.8 billion for health care -- the largest health-related expenditure in the province’s history.

“Spending more money on health care is what previous governments -- including the one I was in -- continued to do and we didn’t see better results from spending more money,” he said.

Hogan said he’ll be asking the health minister more about what concrete steps the governing Liberals are taking to address primary care gaps when the legislature starts up again next week.

Meanwhile, Holt said she’ll continue to provide updates on the province’s progress.

By Eli Ridder

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 29, 2026.