FREDERICTON — New Brunswick's Health Department is failing to provide timely treatment for those struggling with addictions and mental health problems, the province's auditor general says.
Paul Martin released a report Tuesday saying that as demand for referrals, assessments and treatment has increased, wait times often exceeded the department’s benchmarks between April 1, 2022 and March 31, 2024.
"It's unfortunate that the timelines and the waits are very long," Martin told a news conference. "I was very concerned to see the length of time it takes for people to get help, but I'm more concerned to see people falling off the list without any treatment and not knowing what happened to them. Was it because it took too long?"
The report says more than one in five New Brunswickers will deal with an alcohol or drug use disorder in their lifetime, and every year nearly one in 10 will seek treatment for a mood or anxiety disorder.
But the department’s own figures show that less than 50 per cent of high-priority cases received treatment within national benchmarks.
Since 2020, the number of referrals for those seeking addiction and mental health services has increased by 37 per cent, from 23,600 in 2020-21 to more than 32,400 in 2023-24. And as of April 2024, more than 5,000 referrals were still on the wait list for an assessment.
Martin found that the Health Department does not have any targets for minimum wait times for those who have a referral but are waiting for an assessment. His report says that has to change.
As for those who had an assessment and were seeking treatment, the benchmarks are 14 days for high-priority cases, 56 days for moderate cases and no target for low-priority cases.
Between 2022 and 2024, however, the benchmark for high-priority cases was met only 44 per cent of the time, with 433 people waiting more than 100 days. As a result, there were 2,868 assessed patients waiting for treatment as of April 2024. And about a quarter of those people had been waiting more than a year.
Martin also found that of the 63,291 referrals the department made between April 2022 and March 2024, one third were closed without treatment. The top three reasons were: the client did not show up; the department was unable to find the client; or the client withdrew from the process.
"What surprised me most was the number of people who fell out of the system," Martin said.
"If someone doesn't show up, if they decided to take themselves off the list, are they getting the help they require? ... No one is following up to dig into the details of that." The auditor general said the department must find out what is going on.
Meanwhile, the audit found that the province's mental health services advisory committee, which provides advice to the health minister, has not met since 2018. Under provincial legislation, it is supposed to meet at least four times a year.
"Therefore, the department is non-compliant with the Mental Health Services Act," the report says.
On another front, the report found that even though the province's two health authorities had compiled needs assessments for addictions and mental health services, the department did not use them when preparing its budget.
"Without an adequate assessment of needs, the department cannot budget appropriately for the needs of the population," the report says.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 10, 2024.
— By Michael MacDonald in Halifax with files from Hina Alam in Fredericton
The Canadian Press
