Today, New Brunswick health minister Dorothy Shephard was replaced by MLA Bruce Fitch after a man died in a hospital waiting room while awaiting critical care.

Premier Blaine Higgs said that the death was “simply unacceptable.”

“I hear the frustration of our front-line workers,” Higgs said. “People working 24-hour shifts because there is no one to replace them is just unacceptable. The staff who can’t take much-needed vacation or time off. This is unacceptable…. Wait times of up to 12 hours or longer to be seen in an emergency room. It’s unacceptable.”

Higgs then lamented that the man’s death was the latest evident failure of the health care system in New Brunswick, which is a fault of government mismanagement.

“The situation we are in today is a result of many, many years of successive governments refusing to deal with an urgent situation,” said Higgs.

Higgs also announced that John Dornan would be replaced by the vice-president of clinical services, Margaret Melanson, temporarily while the provincial government finds someone more competent.

“Also, as of today, Dr. John Dornan has been replaced as the CEO of Horizon Health Network,” Higgs announced.

In an interview with CTV News, a witness said they saw a man “clearly in discomfort” while sitting in a wheelchair in the emergency department waiting room. After several hours and appearing to have fallen asleep watching TV, the witness realized that he had died in the waiting room.

“The individual in question was clearly in discomfort. There was moaning and groaning and sighs… they were in some kind of pain,” residential support worker John Staples told CTV News in an interview.

“An ER attendant came out and checked people and checked this individual. I’ve done this line of work for 20 years, so, when the ER attendant rushed back, very professionally, as not to raise any alarms, I did look at the individual,” he continued. “I noticed there was no signs of breathing. No rise or fall of the chest or abdomen. I thought, ‘they’re gone.’”