In addition to admitting his plan is based on the concept that "we will all get covid", our Premier stated yesterday:
"We have to be sure that our hospitals can manage it… and what we're seeing and continue to see is our hospitals can manage this."
Are they though?
Since protections were lifted on March 14, Horizon Health has had to blackout emergency departments on weekends due to critical staff shortages, starting with the Saint John Regional Hospital.
The following weekend, this weekend, Horizon has closed the emergency department at the Sussex Health Centre.
When Higgs announced the lifting of protections on February 24, he justified the decision by saying: "The number of hospitalizations continue to trend downward."
The truth is we are worse today than when we desperately moved to Level 3 on January 14, 2022.
Hospitals and the public are in a much more critical situation now than when urgent calls for increased protections were made before the Level 3 lockdown on January 14.
The continued lie of "steady downward trend" is not borne out by even the purposefully reduced evidence.
Also stated in the February 24 presser was that "Horizon and Vitalité say they are managing the situation and are actively transitioning back to normal operation."
We saw on March 14, hospitals remained in RED level restrictions with most operating at or over maximum capacity.
In its most recent status report (March 10), Horizon details the situation.
Vitalité released an even more concerning status report the same day.
So are the hospitals managing? It depends on your definition. Yesterday, Horizon president and CEO Dr. John Dornan reassured us that the critical staff shortages are only because of covid…
…you know, that disease they're managing.
We are assured that "people that are sick with COVID will get better and come back to work."
Not all infected staff will come back, unfortunately, and those that do are at high risk of reinfection and increasing levels of disability.
Once again we are betrayed by hope as policy.
To "manage" hospitals, we must first effectively manage the virus… for hope is not a tool capable of creating real world change, it is a coping mechanism for those with clear disregard for the wellbeing of those they serve.