Dr. David Kogon said he felt he had to speak out in defence of Moncton Hospital.

Two of Moncton Hospital's top doctors are reaching out to the public after recent discussions about health care have left out that hospital.

Dr. David Kogon is Moncton Hospital's chief of staff, and after three years on the job it's the first time he's gone public to defend the hospital.

He and another doctor took the unsual step of sending a letter to several New Brunswick newspapers to clear up what Kogon calls "misconceptions."

"In discussion of hospitals that have high workloads we were left out," Kogon told CBC News.

In recent newspaper articles about health care, Kogon said Moncton Hosptial wasn't mentioned in discussions about getting state-of-the-art MRI machines, even though the Moncton Hospital and the Saint John Regional Hospital are the province's only two neuroscience centres.

Hospital workloads

Instead, he said the articles referred to Saint John Regional Hospital and Dr. Georges-L.-Dumont University Hospital Centre as the "workhorses" of the province.

"The data supports the fact that we may have every bit as much of a workload as other hospitals mentioned in articles and maybe even more," he said.

Ted McDonald studies the economics of health care at UNB and said both Moncton hospitals have a reason to be concerned with budget cuts looming.

"They're trying to reach out to the population, if they sense there are cuts coming they want the public behind them," McDonald said.

Kogon said he's not undermining the work of other hospitals, he's just underlining the work done in Moncton.

"If you're under the radar, nobody pays you any attention. It came time, we had to say 'Look, it's not our style here at the Moncton Hospital to go public, but maybe we need to,'" Kogon said.