Call from premier led Horizon CEO to push Ambulance N.B. to break the rules, leaked audio shows – CBC
Margaret Melanson heard asking a dispatcher to move a patient from his Fredericton home to Saint John hospital
Dec 21, 2022
Leaked audio from a dispatch call is offering new insight into how Premier Blaine Higgs pushed the head of Horizon Health Network to personally intervene in the medical treatment of a man who was in a motorcycle crash in Fredericton last summer.
In the audio file obtained by CBC News, Margaret Melanson, CEO of Horizon Health, can be heard asking an Ambulance New Brunswick dispatcher to break the service’s own policy by transporting a patient from his home in Fredericton to the Saint John Regional Hospital.
The incident, which happened on a Saturday evening in July, raises new questions about Higgs — who that summer had fired the chief executive of Horizon — and his role in the health-care system.
On the evening of July 30, Melanson called Ambulance N.B.’s dispatch service to say she had a “problem” she needed help solving.
