[CUPE healthcare list] NB plans to bring in partially elected regional boards by 2012

[Irene Jansen <ijansen@cupe.ca>]

http://www.healthedition.com/article.cfm?articleID=8082

 

April 9, 2010

 

NB moves to enshrine French-language health services

 

New Brunswick has decided to designate one of the two regional health authorities in the province as officially operating in French. The government is acting on the recommendations of a report it commissioned last December to look at francophone health services. While Regional Health Authority “A” in the northern and largely francophone portion of the province will have French as its working language, both regions will deliver services in the official language of choice of patients. The government will also make amendments to existing legislation so that half the board members of the two regions will be elected by the general population by 2012. This is an abrupt reversal in policy for the government that opted for competency-based appointed boards. These changes may not be enough to head off a constitutional challenge by French-language groups that are unhappy the government abolished the only officially francophone region when it shrank the number from eight to two in 2008. (News release)