N.L. medical officials left with questions amid plans to bring health authorities together

Officials within Newfoundland and Labrador's health-care and academic communities say consolidating the province's four regional health authorities into one has the potential to be a good thing, but there are still questions.

The plan to bring the health authorities together was announced in the 2022 provincial budget, a plan which Finance Minister Siobhan Coady says will streamline processes and improve things like decision making, data management and more.

The idea was also brought forward in the Premier's Economic Recovery Team Report — also known as the Greene Report — in 2021.

Yvette Coffey, president of the province's registered nurses' union, said she was happy to see additional spending in the province's health-care budget, but knows her members will have concerns over moving to a single health authority.

"Our members will have a lot of questions around that, what that means for them, will there be job losses," Coffey told CBC News Friday.

"We would hope that there would be a transition and a discussion with stakeholders … to ensure that there is a workers' lens put on any decisions that are made."

The provincial government says it's too early to tell if the move to one health authority will result in job losses.

Coady also announced Thursday the provincial government is bringing post-secondary medical programs, including pharmacy and nursing, under one province-wide faculty of health — something that originally caught Memorial University President Vianne Timmons off guard.

"If there were conversations, they weren't with me, which is very possible because we're a big, comprehensive university," Timmons said Friday.

Timmons's thought was correct, according to a statement from the Department of Education. The department said budget officials made courtesy calls to various members of Memorial's executive, including the vice president academic and the dean of the Faculty of Medicine.

Timmons said conversations with faculty deans and the school's board of regents will begin to see if government's vision can be a reality, but added partnering with government is important.

"I definitely see the benefits, but there are challenges too," she said.

"For example, each discipline, people are attached to their discipline. They're very focused, they train within their discipline. So we want to make sure that we keep the capacity to make sure our nursing students get trained in the nursing profession … same for pharmacy students."

Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association President Dr. Susan MacDonald said she's cautiously optimistic about the idea, but says the devil is in the details.