NEW BRUNSWICK CATHOLIC HEALTH ASSOCIATION
From the Fredericton Daily Gleaner – January 25, 1986.
Catholic health officials, representative from four dioceses and five sponsoring religious organizations met at the Monsignor Boyd Centre on January 24, 1986 to form the first-ever association of Catholic health institutions.
The New Brunswick Catholic Health Association, which is an organization to aid the 15 Catholic hospitals and nursing homes, in New Brunswick is committed to fostering healing of the individual not only physically but also psychologically, spiritually and socially.
The association is also committed to promoting health care in the Catholic tradition. “We stress the humanizing of health care. We want to take care of the person as a person not as a number,” said the association’s chairperson sister Sarah Maillet.
She says it will act as a forum for collaboration on health concerns between bishops, religious congregations and managers of Catholic health care facilities relating to government and provincial organizations in matters pertaining to its mission.
The association hopes to act as a voice for Christian health care in the province and wants to enhance pastoral care in health care institutions around the province in addition to offering assistance and leadership on ethical and social justice issues related to health care.
“We are also interested in cooperation with other organizations like service clubs that share our interests,” Sister Maillet commented.
A framework for the association’s bylaws was adopted at the meeting. It was decided that representatives on the board of directors would include nominees from sponsoring congregations, Catholic hospitals and homes, the four New Brunswick dioceses and the community at large.
The organization has yet to choose an executive but it has nominated Sister Maillet as chairman until an executive can be put in place.
The Catholic church runs hospitals in communities throughout the province including: Chatham, Caraquet, St. Anne de Kent, Dalhousie, Perth-Andover, Saint John, St. Quentin, Edmundston and Tracadie.