New Brunswick’s COVID-19 Recommendations Lacked Evidence, Auditor General Finds

Paul Martin, New Brunswick auditor general, announces a report on the management of COVID-19 in the province's nursing homes, in Fredericton, Sept. 7, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Hina Alam

New Brunswick’s Department of Health issued 33 recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic without enough evidence to substantiate them, the province’s watchdog said in a newly released report.

Auditor General Paul Martin told a provincial committee last week that the office of the chief medical officer was unable to provide him with the information it used to develop many of the COVID-19-related recommendations that dictated the province’s health orders.

The Department of Health said it could not “provide a fulsome and detailed list of all of the evidence consulted and used when recommendations were being formulated,” the auditor said in his report, which covered the period of April 1, 2020, to March 31, 2022.

The report, which Mr. Martin presented to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts on Dec. 14, examined the main operations used by provincial health authorities to reduce the spread of COVID-19 such as testing, contact tracing, contact management, and infection prevention and control guidance.

Committee member and Green Party health critic Megan Mitton said she found the lack of evidence provided to the auditor general “extremely concerning” and questioned Mr. Martin about the nature of the 33 provincial recommendations.

While Mr. Martin declined to give specifics, he said the 33 recommendations were “key decisions” that had province-wide impacts. He said border closures and masking were two examples.

“I hope that this won’t happen again. It’s not appropriate,” Mr. Martin said. “These records should be retained. People want to know… there was no political interference. I have no evidence that there was, or wasn’t. The evidence isn’t there.”

He said he hoped the committee would hold the Department of Health accountable.

Auditor General ‘Surprised’

Mr. Martin, following his report to the legislature, was asked at a news conference if residents should be concerned about the lack of evidence used by the Health Department when making recommendations.

“When it comes to this type of situation, the pandemic, there’s got to be accountability beyond the norms here,” he replied. “And I would hope they would move toward that direction in the future to have those improvements set up in case this happens again.”

Mr. Martin added that he is “always surprised” when documentation isn’t kept regarding health-related decisions.

Former Health Minister Dorothy Shephard, who held the portfolio during a portion of the pandemic, said she was “not sure” why records had not been kept.

“All I can say is that we made decisions based on the best information we had at the time,” she told reporters last week.

“Everything was moving very rapidly. One decision was made, the next one came right on it, and that kind of stuff just went through. I do have to say that I’m fairly confident, very confident, that the information that public health gave us was validated by (department doctors).”

Areas for Improvement

Despite faulting the health department for not properly retaining records, Mr. Martin lauded the “numerous systems and procedures” it had in place to reduce the spread of COVID-19.

“Department of Health and regional health authority staff went above and beyond to support New Brunswickers during the pandemic,” Mr. Martin told the legislature, but added that his office found “areas for process improvements.”

He made 18 recommendations “to assist in planning for future pandemics,” including tracking and monitoring performance against health-related targets to better assist in decision-making.

The report noted a lack of inventory monitoring systems contributed to the department being “unable to ensure supplies” such as testing kits were provided when needed.

Another key recommendation centred around compassionate travel exemption requests.

More than 300 requests were sent to the chief medical officer of health, but there was a lack of established criteria to ensure consistency and transparency, the report noted.

“Thirty-six percent of exemption requests tested by our office did not have documented rationale for the decision,” Mr. Martin said.

The majority of the recommendations in the report were about implementing better planning and documentation strategies.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.