Highlights of the Board of Directors regular public meeting
Campbellton, April 25, 2017 – The Board of Directors of Vitalité Health Network held its regular public meeting on Tuesday, April 25, 2017 in Campbellton.
Management of food and environmental services
Further to a request made following the February 28, 2017 public meeting, the President and CEO of the Network, Gilles Lanteigne, confirmed that the Minister of Health had agreed to meet with the Board of Directors on May 1, in Moncton, to discuss the issue of privatization of the management of food and environmental services. “Over the past few weeks, we have received an impressive number of letters and messages of support in favour of maintaining the management of these services under Vitalité Health Network,” Mr. Lanteigne stated. “We are encouraged by these expressions of support, especially since the Department of Health has not yet responded to the two new motions adopted at the Board of Directors’ last meeting.”
Mr. Lanteigne went on to point out that over the past year, the Network had implemented a whole series of measures contained in its proposal to the Department of Health. The objective of these proposed measures was to generate savings additional to the Sodexo proposal in the order of $3.4 million over 10 years while maintaining more employees in their current positions. In 2016-2017, the Network reduced the operating costs of its food and environmental services by just over half a million dollars compared to the previous year. “An analysis of our financial performance shows that we generated savings greater than those proposed by Sodexo the first year, in the order of $1.68 million,” Mr. Lanteigne stated. “This was accomplished through a reorganization of our services and a reduction of 16 FTEs (full-time equivalents), largely through attrition and with no hospital cafeteria closures and with an improvement in the quality of services provided to patients.”
Privatization of the Extra-Mural Program
The Network’s Board of Directors met with the Minister of Health, the Associate Deputy Minister Responsible for Francophone Affairs, and the President and CEO of Medavie on March 13 in an effort to better understand the benefits resulting from the privatization of the Extra-Mural Program after its eventual transfer to Medavie. “Unfortunately, this meeting did not help answer our questions concerning: 1) The proposed care model; 2) Ambulance NB’s excess capacity, and 3) The promise to implement a computerized record,” Mr. Lanteigne explained. “On the contrary, all these basic questions remained unanswered.”
The Network is still seeking to understand the Department of Health’s objectives in this matter. “In the meantime, we remain extremely concerned about this privatization plan since, in addition to impacting direct patient care, it would deprive the Network of control over a tool essential to achieving one of its strategic objectives, namely to provide primary health care as close as possible to people’s homes,” Mr. Lanteigne concluded.
Organizational performance – positive results
The Network announced its financial results for the first 10 months of the current fiscal year, i.e. for the period April 1, 2016 to January 31, 2017. The corporation recorded an operating surplus of $5.75 million as a result of expenses approximately $5.99 million under budget and income approximately $238,700 under budget. The Network also reported that overtime had dropped by 3,966 hours across the organization. Sick leave had increased by 16,785 hours over the same period last year. The months of February and March typically experience high activity levels. The Network expects to close out fiscal 2016-2017 with a small surplus.
