Three Hours and 49 Minutes: What Happens to New Brunswick When Cold and Flu Season Arrives?

Oct 23

Almost four hours for a phone call back

In August, New Brunswickers who called Tele-Care 811 and needed a nurse to call them back waited an average of three hours and 49 minutes. That is the figure the Department of Health gave CTV News this week, up from an average of 12 minutes.

We are disappointed. When the province chose a different virtual care provider earlier this year, we said so publicly, and we hoped the transition would be smooth for the people who depended on it. We did not want to be writing this post in October.

What the numbers say

Callback waits rose from 12 minutes to nearly four hours in two months, after the province moved from eVisitNB to Foundever's Virtual Care NB on June 30.

Before July: 12 minutes
July 2026: 2 hours 53 minutes
August 2026: 3 hours 49 minutes
September 2026: 3 hours 18 minutes

CTV reports that July's wait was more than 1,300 percent higher than the old average. By our arithmetic, August's is more than 19 times higher.

The department's side deserves a fair hearing. It says 65 percent of calls were resolved within minutes on first contact, and that only callers who couldn't reach a nurse right away had to wait for a callback. It attributes the delays to higher-than-normal call volumes in July and August, including demand related to Virtual Care NB.

That last point worries us. Those were summer months, and the department says volumes only began to stabilize in late September, when the average callback wait was still 3 hours 18 minutes.

Behind the averages are real people

Patients have been describing the same frustrations since the handover. One told CBC she spent an hour and a half on the phone with 811 just to book an appointment. Another told CTV she waited about four hours and still had no appointment. In CTV's latest report, Fredericton resident Hilary Quigley called 811 on a Friday about a new symptom and waited more than eight hours to speak to a nurse. The nurse suggested a clinic, but local clinics had closed, and the online clinic had no openings, so she didn’t receive care until Monday. The chair of the New Brunswick Coalition of Persons with Disabilities warned that long waits will push worried parents toward emergency rooms.

The health minister acknowledged that the province did not realize how many people relied on virtual care to renew prescriptions, and it has since added a prescription renewal option to the 811 phone menu. The New Brunswick Pharmacists' Association said its members were seeing more people and a lot of confusion about where to go.

On volume, the Department of Health reported 2,045 completed services in Virtual Care NB's first 22 days. In June alone, eVisitNB provided 19,781 consultations. The two figures may not be counted the same way, but the gap is hard to miss.

If this is summer, what will January look like?

We know what a surge feels like from the inside. In late 2022, RSV, COVID and influenza arrived together, and our own wait times climbed. We added staff, capped how many people could book at once, and told patients plainly that on the busiest days waits could pass six hours. We never pretended the line did not exist.

By February of this year, we were seeing between 750 and 1,000 patients on an average day. That is the kind of demand cold and flu season brings back every year.

So we have to ask the question out loud. If a callback takes nearly four hours in August, what does it take in January? What happens to the parent with a feverish toddler, the senior with a worsening cough, or the person who simply needs an antibiotic for a throat infection and has no family doctor?

We do not know the answer. We are disappointed that, a few weeks into respiratory season, New Brunswickers do not seem to know either.

What New Brunswickers can do, and what we are asking for

For now, the province recommends contacting your family doctor or nurse practitioner first. If you don't have one, or yours is unavailable and the issue cannot wait, reach Virtual Care NB through the online symptom checker or by calling Tele-Care 811. If it is an emergency, call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room. Do not wait for a callback if you have serious symptoms.

We are asking the province for two things before the winter wave arrives:

Publish 811 callback and Virtual Care NB wait times every month, including September and October.
Release a public surge plan for cold and flu season, with the staffing it assumes.

Over four years, eVisitNB completed more than one million consults for more than 350,000 patients.

Sources

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