Barb Haines’s health-care needs are as simple as a single cholesterol pill. But getting that prescription refilled these days is anything but straightforward.
Ever since her family doctor retired five years ago, the virtual care she received through New Brunswick’s eVisitNB program was a medical lifeline that kept her out of walk-in clinics and hospital waiting rooms.
But the New Brunswick-based service she had come to rely on, changed over to Virtual Care NB on June 30, provided by Luxembourg-based Foundever.
She said under the previous system, which used the Maple platform, she would request a prescription renewal online and someone would contact her within a few hours. But not anymore.
“It was a very disappointing experience,” she said. “The only way you could book an appointment is you had to go through 811, which I called and was on the phone for an hour and a half… before I got through.”
“Then I was told that I would have to go to either a pharmacy or walk-in clinic to renew my prescription, which is totally ridiculous.”
‘Not impressed’
Haines said she eventually received a call back from someone who booked her an appointment for later this week. But that’s a week longer than she would have waited previously, and for that, she said she’s “not impressed.”
“I’m actually a little disappointed and upset over this because they’ve taken away convenience and they’ve made it that much more difficult to access health care now,” she said.
This story was brought to Nouzie by RSS. The original post can be found on https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/virtual-care-changes-aggravating-some-patients-9.7262677?cmp=rss
