eVisitNB top exec slams health minister
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B ArchivesShoppingPuzzmoSalonBusiness AdsObituariesClassifiedsE-EditionNewslettersManage Print SubscriptionNew BrunswickThe IssuesHealth careeVisitNB top exec slams health ministerChief operating officer Amy McLeod says failings of government's chosen virtual care replacement are obviousPublished Jul 18, 2026•Last updated 6 minutes ago•4 minute readYou can save this article by registering for freehere. Orsign-inif you have an account. The firm eVisitNB provided virtual health care consultations to 365,000 patients over the last five years before being dumped by the provincial government. UNSPLASHA top executive is slamming New Brunswick’s health minister for diminishing the accomplishments of her firm that provided virtual care to hundreds of thousands of patients over the last five years. Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada. Unlimited online access to articles from across Canada with one account. 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Access articles from across Canada with one accountShare your thoughts and join the conversation in the commentsEnjoy additional articles per monthGet email updates from your favourite authorsAmy McLeod, a registered nurse, is the chief operating officer of eVisitNB, the company that was unceremoniously dumped on June 30 by the Liberal government in favour of a new provider, Virtual Care NB. She told Brunswick News on Friday she wasn’t impressed withHealth Minister John Dornan’s press conferenceearlier in the week that addressed complaints from patients about the new service’s shortcomings. “I am incredibly disappointed that he keeps standing behind a service that is not showing the ability to meet the needs,” McLeod said. “And I’m incredibly disappointed that he feels the need to try to diminish what we accomplished with eVisitNB over the last five years in order to make the service he chose look like less of a failure. ”The provincial government did not immediately respond to the criticism Friday, nor did Dornan. The minister told reporters on Wednesday that he was confident Virtual Care NB would keep improving, and he insisted it wasn’t a failure. He said the change was for the better because triaging of patients and francophone service had improved. A clear and concise roundup to start your weekday morning. By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc. A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Morning Email Telegraph-Journal will soon be in your inbox. We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againThe minister admitted, however, that the government hadn’t anticipated how many people would seek prescription renewals through the new virtual service, and promised a solution was forthcoming. The former Higgs Progressive Conservative government decided to offer virtual care for the first time during the pandemic, a service it didn’t put to tender. It gave the job to eVisitNB, the brainchild of emergency room doctor Dr. Hanif Chatur, who works at the Upper River Valley Hospital, and Dr. Jonathan Clayton, a family doctor in the Stanley area. Chatur now acts as the firm’s CEO. Established in 2020, the New Brunswick firm served 365,000 patients over the last five years and provided more than 1. 1 million consultations, putting New Brunswickers in contact online with nurse practitioners, professionals who are one step up from registered nurses. But the new Liberal government decided it wanted to put a new contract for virtual services to tender. Foundever, whose headquarters are in Miami, won the bid. It has run the TeleCare 811 system in New Brunswick for 25 years, putting patients in touch with a registered nurse over the phone. Dornan insisted it had an excellent track record. McLeod, a registered nurse with more than 40 years’ experience, said eVisitNB was doing on average 600 consultations a day, a figure that got as high as 1,000 a day during cold and flu season. It had 165 nurse practitioners on staff. By contrast, Dornan said Wednesday that Virtual Care NB was serving up to 90 patients a day, with 52 nurse practitioners at the ready. A doctor himself, Dornan stressed that some appointments should be handled in person by a physician or nurse practitioner, or even a pharmacist, not just virtually, especially complex medical problems. As many as 200,000 of New Brunswick’s 860,000 residents don’t have a family doctor, putting people in a pinch and driving many patients to already overcrowded hospital emergency rooms. McLeod pushed back against the suggestion that the nurse practitioners at her company weren’t telling patients when they should be seen in person by a primary care provider. She also insisted her firm provided excellent French-language service to the one-third of New Brunswickers who need it. She said initial concerns that the service wasn’t as easy to use for French-speaking patients were addressed early on, improvements acknowledged by the Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages. The executives at eVisitNB still want to have a meeting with Dornan because they think he might not fully understand the complexity of the system they had managed. “The system that they have created is working exactly the way they wanted it, based on my conversations and dealing with the bureaucrats at the Department of Health,” McLeod said. “Their intent was to channel people into the lowest cost for care to meet the needs, which is not a bad thing if all of those places that they were channeling people to were actually fully functioning in the way that the Department of Health thought that they did. ”For example, the executive said, the department staffers wanted patients seeking prescription renewals to go to pharmacies instead of seeking them virtually. But she said this was bound to fail because the pharmacies are only allowed to renew certain medications. “I and our CEO and our business partners have a strong aversion to being another closed door for people in accessing their care. I refuse to push everybody away that was looking for a prescription refill unless they could be assured that they could get that prescription refill with their pharmacy. ”While McLeod said her firm knew it could lose the competitive bidding process, she remains disappointed that neither the government nor Foundever asked for advice on how to properly manage the virtual care system. There was never any kind of exit interview, she said. “It is important to be good stewards of our money, but they must make sure that the services that they want people diverted to are able to provide the service. That’s what’s most important. I think that the frustration you’re hearing from patients and the number of chronic health conditions that people in New Brunswick are dealing with are significant. It’s a really complex system, and it’s one that we had, in my opinion, a very good handle on. ”Asked if her company would fold now that it had lost the big contract, she said her team was focused on completing the rest of the requirements of their transition agreement with the government. “There are more things unknown than there are known, so we’re we’ve decided to wait to see how everything falls. ”More to come…Join the ConversationMoncton to MiramichiNew BrunswickFredericton & WestSaint John & SouthMoncton to MiramichiThis website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more aboutcookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to ourTerms of UseandPrivacy Policy.