The provincial government’s news release last Wednesday was succinct, if not desert-dry. “MyHealthNS,” it began, “the province’s secure online service that allows patients to access their health information and securely communicate with their doctor, is moving to a new software vendor.” Which new software vendor? When? The release didn’t say. Why? What happened? Well, the...
Janet Knox: helping people develop a healthy lifestyle would be a better investment of health care dollars
About 150 people turned up for the annual general meeting of the Nova Scotia Health Authority in Truro yesterday. The NSHA oversees a yearly budget of $2.1 billion used to operate the province’s hospitals and ambulances, deliver diagnostic tests and mental health treatment, recruit family doctors and nurse practitioners, as well as provide wellness programs...
Nova Scotia health care by the numbers
A rally organized by a citizen who started a Facebook group called “Nova Scotia Health Care Crisis” attracted about 75 people in front of the former library on Spring Garden Road Saturday afternoon. They included three frustrated emergency room doctors from Valley Regional Hospital who began a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for new long-term […]
Health care crisis? What health care crisis?
Listen to Premier McNeil and Health Minister Delorey and you might imagine Inez Rudderham’s problems are specific and anomalous. Fix them and we fix the problem. The problem is McNeil and Delorey are the problem.
“To the premier of Nova Scotia, I dare you to take a meeting with me, and explain to me, and look into my eyes, and tell me that there is no health-care crisis in my province of Nova Scotia.” Inez Rudderham It was probably too much to expect Premier Stephen McNeil to respond in any...
Health care crisis? Check. Leadership to solve it? Another question…
“I want to assure you that I’ve heard you, and I’ve listened,” McNeil said of the health care crisis on election night. “We have a plan, and the opposition parties have a plan, and we can work together to make it better." So much for working together. With the opposition. Or, more importantly, with Nova Scotians.
Did you know that, as of Friday morning, the Nova Scotia Health Authority’s News website was reporting a full computer page — 10 different items — flagging current, ongoing, never-ending emergency room closures in Nova Scotia? From the Lillian Fraser Memorial in Tatamagouche, to the Eastern Shore Memorial in Sheet Harbour, to Guysborough Memorial, to […]
The Horne case: mumble-mouthed nothings from mealy-mouthed nobodies
Neither Capital Health nor the Nova Scotia Health Authority has ever publicly apologized to Horne for years of bullying and harassment, while successive provincial governments chose to look the other way, giving carte blanche to the health authority to hire hugely expensive, by-the-hour outside lawyers to bully Horne for more than a decade. And so it goes...
If you read only last week’s headlines — Appeal Court Slashes Damages Payout to Cardiologist Gabrielle Horne (Chronicle Herald); Halifax Cardiologist Sees Reduced Damages of $800K in Suit Against Health Authority: Nova Scotia Court of Appeal Rejects Appeal by Dr. Gabrielle Horne to also Sue for Breach of Contract (cbc.ca) — you might assume world...
Doctor, doctor, who needs a doctor? 42,198 Nova Scotians and counting…
The larger issue is the lack of political leadership to tackle the crisis. Where’s Stephen McNeil when we need him? Oh, right...
Nova Scotia has a doctor problem. Perhaps lack-of-doctor might be more accurate. And “crisis” is certainly a more apt description than the mundane problem. According to the province’s one-year-old “Need A Family Practice” list, 42,198 Nova Scotians — 4.6 per cent of the province’s population — are currently officially listed as looking for a doctor....
Stephen McNeil could learn a thing or two from Fidel Castro
How is it that Cuba, which is such a poor country, can afford such a comprehensive health care system and so many Nova Scotians don't have a family doctor? We're glad you asked.
My wife and I recently spent a week in Washington, D.C., advocating for an end to the failed, 56-years-and-counting U.S. blockade of Cuba. We were with a group that included American, Canadian, and European activists, a renowned Cuban pediatric oncologist, a North American representative of Cuba’s main people-to-people friendship organization, the head of a Cuban...
A white dude writes about cultural appropriation: Morning File, Monday, May 15, 2017
News 1. Health care Michael Tutton, writing for the Canadian Press, has an election analysis piece headlined “How health care became key issue in N.S. election campaign“: David Johnson, a political scientist at Cape Breton University, said Stephen McNeil’s government is paying a price for failing to keep 2013 election promises such as ensuring all citizens have access to family physicians, and for […]