It is a mind-boggling number of humans to care for, but it is an average patient load for a New Brunswick general practitioner. Barry admits more than double that number of sore throats, coughs and bad backs come through his door every year.

Between his office hours, hospital rounds and house calls to elderly patients, Barry works an average 65-hour week. But it's not the hours, the workload or the lack of support that leaves Barry sleepless at night. What bothers him most, he says, is that the chronic staff shortage within this province's health care system means he's never sure if the treatments he recommends for his patients will happen in time to help them.

New Brunswick is facing a health care staffing crisis that will only get worse as hundreds of nurses and doctors become eligible for retirement in the next five years.

As the Tory government strolls into an election campaign bragging about four years of health spending increases and smarter management, critics say the fact is there aren't enough nurses, lab techs, doctors or specialists in the system to care for patients.

Barry says that means longer waiting times for treatment and tests, and more pain and suffering for patients.

"It used to be the money," Barry says. "Now we have enough money but we don't have the bodies."

Patients in Fredericton are waiting six weeks or more for X-rays because the local hospital is short two technologists. That same hospital was forced to permanently close entire wards last year because of a nursing shortage.

Small hospitals in Minto, Sussex, Tracadie and Riverside-Albert have been forced to cut back ER hours or close because there aren't enough doctors to cover the shifts. Four years ago, pap smear results were ready in three days. Now, because of a shortage of lab technologists, it takes nearly three weeks. The Saint John sleep disorder clinic has been turning away patients for more than a year, because it can't find a psychologist to treat them.

On a larger scale, the New Brunswick Nurses' Union estimates there are at least 200 vacant nursing jobs in the province at any given time. At least 44 family doctors and specialists could begin working in New Brunswick tomorrow, in permanent and locum positions, if only they would move here. Add that to the hundreds of health professionals marching steadily toward retirement, and the human resource alarm bells begin ringing.

The provincial government has not been blind to the problem. With gentle urging in the form of strike threats and a three-day doctor's work stoppage in 2001, the Tories have steadily increased wages for health workers, including doctors, nurses and even home care staff.

The government has also written legislation allowing for the creation of nurse practitioners, who will eventually take the place of family doctors in some emergency rooms and health clinics.

As well, the government has embarked on a plan to build a network of 24-hour community health centres that will one day provide primary care in rural communitities, in many cases, replacing the full-service hospitals that are proving so difficult to staff. Premier Bernard Lord has even mused out loud about allowing private companies to step into the provincial health care system, providing support where it makes financial sense and does not affect patient care.

These are all long-term plans that may allow for a slow healing within the system, but many who work on the front lines say it's not enough.

Union president Debbie McGraw represents 5,700 registered nurses across New Brunswick, and says the province must be held accountable for the growing problem. New Brunswick nurses earn the lowest wage in Canada, and hundreds of new graduates and experienced workers are being lured across the border to the United States and elsewhere for higher paying, permanent jobs.

"Even little tiny Prince Edward Island pays their nurses three dollars more an hour than New Brunswick does," she says.

McGraw says New Brunswick's border communities are hit particularly hard, when nurses can drive across to Maine and double their Canadian salaries overnight. Also, nearly 2,000 nurses will be eligible for retirement within the next five years.

The union has offered the government a phaseout package to try to deal with the potential losses - but McGraw says province has not responded to the idea. "You need a good blend of people on the hospital floor, some of the new graduates who have the strength and energy and some of the more experienced ones who know how the system works," she says.

"And unless we are willing to do something innovative, that crowd is going to go."

As a family physician who is now able to pay his office bills and draw a reasonable income for his work, Dr. Barry applauds the Tories for dealing with many of the funding problems in the health care system, but he worries the staff shortage is a problem no political promises can solve.

"I don't even want to criticize them because at least they are doing something," he says. "And it's a little better for me because I can pay my salaries and keep my office going, but the human resources just aren't there. The nursing shortage is the number one problem we have, and I worry about who is going to do the ongoing care?"