'It's a cry from the heart:' Municipal leaders push for hospital daycare

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Residents and municipal leaders pushed the Vitalité Health Network board for updates on a daycare for health-care staff in the Restigouche area and to re-open the obstetrical services at the Campbellton Regional Hospital.

In the question period at the end of Vitalité‘s board meeting, Brad Mann, chair of the Restigouche Regional Service Commission, said members of the service commission have been discussing the need for a daycare for two years now.

“Some employees are unable to return from maternity leaves because they cannot find a daycare,” he said. “Others do not accept a position here because they have no daycare.”

Mann said last year he and his team went to Fredericton and met with Premier Blaine Higgs, and ministers from the Department of Health, and Department of Education and Early Childhood Development to talk about the need for a daycare in the Restigouche area, and was told the province would be supporting the project.

The service commission was told there would be a daycare in September.

“We’re now April 2024 and it is still in development,” he said.

Mann said the ideal space for the childcare centre would be a former addictions services building on Gallant Drive located between the Campbellton Regional Hospital and the Restigouche Hospital Centre, making it ideal for hospital staff.

“Why is this building not being considered,” he said.

He asked the Vitalité board if it would commit to the establishment of the daycare.

Réjean Després, co-chair of the board, said the board is “committed” to having the daycare, and gave authority for the project to go forward.

“As board members we don’t get involved in the where, why, and how. We give directions to our members,” he said.

Heron Bay Mayor Normand Pelletier said a daycare is needed to help nurses get back to work and to attract young professionals to the region. He asked for the childcare centre to be taken on as a pilot project. 

“We’re certain it can help solve issues at the Campbellton Hospital in terms of staffing,” he said.

We can't do it on our own

Dr. France Desrosiers

Dr. France Desrosiers Vitalité’s president and CEO said having a daycare has been part of the health authority’s vision.

“We can offer infrastructure. We can’t do it on our own. We need support,” she said during the question period.

Campbellton Mayor Jean Guy Levesque pointed out housing is another need in the region, and the municipality had received $4.5 million in funding from the federal government to build 200 units in Campbellton.

When families move to the area for work they bring their children with them, putting a further demand for childcare.

“We take care of the housing, but if we don’t take care of the daycare problem people will not come to Restigouche,” he said.

Levesque said the municipality and service commission could work with the health authority to find a partner to operate the daycare.

“We really need this daycare,” he said. “It’s a cry from the heart.” 

Desrosiers said in an interview with Brunswick News after the meeting that having a daycare near the hospitals could be attractive to health care staff. 

Health workers did mention childcare as a need in employee surveys, Desrosiers said, adding she has heard it can be a two year wait to get into a daycare in some places in the Restigouche area. Though, she said childcare is not the health authority’s main solution for retention.

She noted Vitalité’s mandate is to run the health care system. 

“We don’t have the capacity to run the daycare,” she said, noting the health authority could help to find a location or put out a tender to find someone to operate the centre.

When asked about the daycare project, Department of Health spokesperson Sean Hatchard said in an email “while the Department of Health does not have a direct role with this project, its ongoing work continues to support the regional health authorities in their recruitment efforts to attract more health-care professionals into the system.”

The lack of obstetrics care was another issue raised by the public at the meeting. One resident said he would like to see the return of services, such as child delivery, to the Campbellton Hospital. 

The resident added there are pregnant women who have to travel to Bathurst to have their baby, sometimes on dangerous roads in the winter, and he asked for a deadline on when the unit would re-open. 

Campbellton Regional Hospital’s obstetrics and gynecology unit has been closed since 2020 because of staffing shortages.

Desrosiers said the health authority has tried to recruit specialists like gynecologists to that hospital, but have not been successful. It is continuing to work on recruitment and retention efforts. 

The shortages are spread out across the Vitalité locations, she said, adding there are also difficulties at obstetrics units in Bathurst, Edmundston, and Moncton. 

“If we didn’t close this one we would need to close another one,” she said. “We cannot do what we want to do, but we’re trying to do our best with what we have at our disposal.” 

Prenatal and postnatal care is still available in the Campbellton area, she said.