Restigouche area of northern N.B. has highest rate of avoidable deaths, council finds
CBC
When the New Brunswick Health Council released its report this week on avoidable deaths in the province, one area stood out.
Health Zone 5, the Restigouche area, saw a significantly higher number of avoidable deaths than the rest of the province.
The report released Tuesday says that from 2019 to 2022, an average of 202.5 per 100,000 New Brunswickers died each year from a cause that “could have been avoided … with the prevention and care options that exist."
But for Zone 5, which includes the communities of Campbellton, Dalhousie and Atholville, this number climbs to 272.5 per 100,000.
The area also had higher rates of both preventable and treatable deaths.
But Zone 5 stands out also because of the causes of death.
While lung cancer and heart disease top the list of avoidable causes, as they do in all other health zones, suicide was the fourth-highest avoidable cause of death in Zone 5.
Suicide is listed ninth provincewide and never rises above seventh in other health zones.
The report named the Restigouche area as a “distinct profile,” and Stéphane Robichaud, the New Brunswick Health Council CEO, said it shows the need to improve access to mental health services.
“I think what this does is it helps to further prove the importance of efforts in those areas of mental health,” Robichaud said.
“And for those who … interact with these patients in each of the zones, it does give a bit of credence to the importance of the area of work that they're in.”
Christa Baldwin, the CEO of the Canadian Mental Health Association in New Brunswick, agrees that access to mental health services needs to be improved in the north.
When it comes to suicide, there never is just one reason someone takes their own life, Baldwin said, but there are factors in the region that could help explain that high rate.
“We're looking at rural areas that probably have less service than urban areas,” she said.
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