Francophone health group wants equality

The president of the Committee for Health in French says his group is lobbying for equality, not duality, in New Brunswick's health care system.

Dr. Hubert Dupuis is a family doctor in Dieppe. He says the province's 250,000 francophones are forced to go to hospitals in the region covered by the anglophone Horizon Health Network for certain specialized services such as neurosurgery, child psychiatry, and heart surgery.

Dupuis says francophones in the province have the right to those services at hospitals within the francophone Vitalite Health Network.

"Around six hundred physicians in Vitalite, francophone physicians do agree with us," said Dupuis. "Also the physicians of the university teaching centre, Dr. Georges L. Dumont, unanimously is behind us. We have quite a few physicians backing us up."

Dupuis says there was a promise from the provincial government in 2010 to equalize services in the province's two health districts. He says not much has changed since then, but his group will meet with the Health minister on Oct. 4th.

Dupuisis hoping the details of the equalization plan will be revealed at that meeting.

The committee dropped a lawsuit against the province in April 2010 after government officials promised equal treatment for the provinces two health districts