Premier David Alward is dismissing demands by doctors at the Dr.-Georges-L-Dumont University Hospital to leave the Vitalité Health Network.

A group of doctors at the Moncton hospital want the facility to separate from the health network and have its own administration and board.

Doctors in Saint John say they are also frustrated by the structure of the Horizon Health Network, but they have not issued a call to separate from the authority.

The province's eight health authorities were merged into two in 2008 and Alward said he sees no reason to go back.

"What we believe that we have in place is the structure to allow us to provide good health care, ultimately to allow people to receive the service that they need at the right place at the right time,” Alward said on Thursday.

“So I have no intention to see any changes going back to the way it was in the past."

Alward says the newly appointed chief executive officers of the two health networks have been on the job for a week and he believes they will continue improving the system.

The physicians at the Dumont hospital are complaining about how decisions are made in the restructured health authority.

Those frustrations are shared by doctors in the Horizon Health Network.

Saint John doctors are frustrated

Dr. Steven Bryniak, a Saint John-based urologist, said physicians have been telling the provincial government for years about problems with the new health structure.

“We have the same thing here in Saint John. We have the biggest hospital in the province, and yet we can't do anything because the levels of bureaucracy are there and the decision-making is in Miramichi,” he said.

When the health authorities were created, the administration for the Horizon Health Network was placed in Miramichi and the administration for the Vitalité Health Network was put in Bathurst.

More than a year ago, Bryniak wrote to Horizon's administration in Miramichi about a lack of operating room access in Saint John.

Bryniak said he has never seen the delivery of health care done so inefficiently.

“You can't get it into the operating room, the patient is taken — which is an inpatient at the [Saint John] Regional to St. Joseph's hospital — in order to do that simple procedure, put in an ambulance, $300 each way. That's not cost effective,” he said.

But Bryniak said he never heard back from the administration of Horizon Health about this concern.

The Saint John doctor is willing to give Health Minister Ted Flemming a chance to improve the delivery of health services.

He said the staff at the Dumont should also have some patience.

“Please persevere, give this man a chance to try and do what his job is. I think down the road everybody is going to be a little happier to fix the issues in New Brunswick,” he said.

Bryniak says if Flemming doesn't fix things within a year, he too will be out of patience.

At that time, Bryniak said he and other doctors within Horizon Health may join their colleagues at the Dumont and ask for their own health authority.