Dr. John Dornan said in a July 11 email that “a seventh wave of COVID is among us,” with hospitalizations and staff cases rising. An infectious disease and infection control committee at Horizon “recommended that it be moved to Hospital Red phase next week if the numbers continue to deteriorate,” Dornan wrote in the email obtained by CBC News. Dornan wrote that officials “could make that call collectively on Monday or Tuesday next week,” referring to July 18 and 19. The red phase move never happened, even though the numbers continued to get worse. The following Tuesday, the two health authorities reported an increase in weekly COVID-19 admissions, active hospitalizations, hospital cases and staff infections between July 10 and 16. Dornan was fired on July 15. An important element of the red phase protocols would be to ban routine visitors from seeing patients in hospitals. In his email, the then-CEO said that the transition to the red phase “depends” on the agreement of Vitalité and Public Health. However, the General Director of Health Dr. Jennifer Russell said Wednesday that she had no insight into why there was no traffic at the red light. “I don’t want to speak for the RHAs. They are the decision makers in this case, so they are the authority on what happens in their own businesses,” he said. Dornan said in the July 11 email that it was “likely” Horizon would share the possibility of going red “publicly this week as a heads up. It’s good to be transparent.” This never happened. At the time of Dornan’s sacking, Premier Blaine Higgs said a change in leadership was needed to break a “bureaucratic gridlock” in the health system and push for reforms to tackle long waiting lists and clogged emergency departments. Higgs made the changes after a patient died while waiting for care in the emergency department at Dr. Everett Chalmers in Fredericton. Dr. John Dornan has been fired as CEO of Horizon Health. (Jacques Poitras/CBC) Vitalité’s vice president of medical services, Natalie Banville, responded to Dornan’s July 11 email that she had spoken with CEO France Desrosiers and health authority officials wanted to “analyze the situation more closely.” He said cases were increasing, but only two of Vitalité’s 17 admissions were “related to COVID.” “We need to look more closely at the epidemiology and the state of the zone before we go into the red phase,” Banville wrote, saying Vitalité’s leadership would meet on July 12 and respond with a recommendation. Dornan thanked her and said Horizon would “try to be on the same page.” It’s unclear what Vitalité recommended the next day, or why Dornan’s replacement, interim CEO Margaret Melanson, didn’t follow his plan. Unlike Dornan, Desrosiers remains in her position as CEO of Vitalité. Dornan declined an interview request from CBC News about his email. “I have no comment,” he said Wednesday. In a statement to CBC News, Melanson said Horizon has “gained more knowledge about the virus” during the pandemic and can now adopt “more targeted and flexible” measures while maintaining essential services and allowing guests. The statement did not address why Dornan felt differently and favored a full transition to the red phase less than four weeks ago. Three days after his email and one day before he was fired as CEO, Dornan encouraged Horizon staff in an internal memo to “consider setting an example” by covering indoor public spaces because of his “escalating” broadcast COVID-19. A Department of Health spokesman said on July 18 that Dornan’s dismissal was “not related” to that memo. Horizon and Vitalité went red on December 31st during a surge in Omicron cases. They returned to the orange phase on June 20. Dornan’s July 11 email referred to a “seventh wave” arriving, although provincial public health officials were reluctant to use the term. Russell told the Brunswick News on July 12 that she might not call future increases in cases waves. “I don’t want to call it a wave in the sense that everyone defines it differently. I’m saying it’s an increased number of cases,” he told the papers. “Whether it’s a surge or not a surge, we’re seeing an increased level of activity in COVID cases. Between July 10 and 16, the same week Dornan wrote the email and was fired, 30 people were newly hospitalized with COVID-19, up from 15 the previous week. That number jumped again to 40 people between July 17 and 23. The two health authorities had 209 people sick between July 10 and 16. This rose to 229 in the week of July 17-23. As of July 16, Horizon and Vitalité had 84 active hospitalized patients with COVID-19. It rose to 90 a week later. The number of weekly new cases fell last week for the first time in weeks. Those numbers tracked infections from July 17 to 23, and officials said it could indicate that hospitalization numbers, which have lagged behind cases by a week or two, will soon peak and begin to decline as well. . In new numbers released Wednesday for July 24-30, the number of weekly new cases fell again and the number of admissions and active hospitalizations for COVID-19 fell slightly.
