New Brunswick — With chronic ER under-staffing resulting in extremely long wait times for care — and no end in sight to the issue — government and doctors have been urging New Brunswickers to stay safe and take care of themselves.
“It’s all about preventive medicine these days, unfortunately,” said one physician. “We’re not going to be able to take care of you, so all we can say is, just don’t do anything that could possibly land you in an ER. Stay inside, drink water, don’t try a new kind of shroom, don’t get drunk and go ATVing, don’t move! Our health care system depends on it!”
Ever on the hunt for expedient solutions, Premier Blaine Higgs has a proposition — to simply rebrand the province’s “emergency rooms” as “minor concern rooms.”
“The word ‘emergency’ just has this scary feel to it, and makes people think they can’t wait a day or two to deal with whatever is happening to them or their loved one,” Higgs explained. “So we think that by simply changing the name to ‘minor concern’ it’ll ease a lot of minds and remind citizens that they don’t need to be so stressed out if the ER — I mean MCR — is closed.”
Higgs also believes that New Brunswickers need to rethink what constitutes an “emergency.”
“Use your common sense, people. Is a broken arm an ’emergency,’ or something you could probably walk off? Is heat stroke an emergency, or a hoax perpetuated by the Liberals to support their climate change theories? Is a bullet wound an emergency, or something you could patch up yourself with the help of a YouTube video? If you stop and think for a second before rushing to the ER, we wouldn’t be in this mess.”
The Dr. Everett Chalmers Hospital emergency room is serving as a pilot for the rebrand.
“We’re pleased to announce the opening of the DECH Minor Concern Room,” said former Horizon CEO John Dornan, just before Higgs targeted Dornan as a scapegoat and fired him. “We hope that we can run this place more smoothly now that ’emergencies’ are no longer our specialty. If you have a minor concern, a mildly pressing health issue, feel free to come wait, bring books, blankets, snacks and whatever else you need to make yourself at home, and someone will probably see you at some point.
“If not, no biggie.”