People from across Queens gathered at the Best Western in Liverpool Friday to share their concerns about the health care system and hear what the province is doing to fix them.

Minister of Health and Wellness Michelle Thompson and representatives from across the health authority spent just over an hour answering questions from the public.

Residents wanted to know what’s being done to recruit more primary caregivers, how to reduce wait times, and if there are enough paramedics to answer their call in an emergency.

Thompson says she welcomes the opportunity to speak directly to Nova Scotians about steps government is taking to tackle the healthcare crisis.

“Sometimes it’s hard for us to get our message out," said Thompson. "It’s hard to get all of this information out past media cycle, we often live in soundbites and so to sit in community and hear directly and speak directly for two hours, I think is really meaningful for people.”

The minister went into detail about plans to recruit doctors from abroad and entice retired physicians back to practice.

Residents pose questions to Nova Scotia Health officials at the Queens Community Health Conversation on Feb 17 2023. Photo by Ed Halverson.

But she made it clear that across North America, systems are moving away from patients having a single-family doctor and moving to a collaborative team approach.

Thompson says that care team could consist of a nurse practitioner, a physiotherapist, a dietician, a pharmacist, or any other combination of healthcare professionals.

The point would be for your file to be with a clinic and when you sought treatment you would be triaged and directed to the appropriate caregiver.

This method would also allow your health record to stay within a practice so even if one of the members left, your record would be accessible, and you could still receive care.

Throughout the question-and-answer period the health minister hinted at new legislation that would be introduced during the upcoming sitting of the legislature to remove obstacles from healthcare workers.

“Everything is focused right now on healthcare,” said Thompson. “There are barriers that sometimes we don’t always see, and we want to remove those.”

When pressed on which barriers her department would like to remove Thompson said, “How do we use people to the fullness of their scope? How do we ensure that there’s mobility so people can move into the province easily and making sure that we’ve modernized those systems.”

Thompson says how government will meet those goals will be revealed when the Legislature reconvenes March 21.

E-mail: edhalversonnews@gmail.com
Twitter: @edwardhalverson

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