So, let’s begin this history lesson somewhere in the murky middle muddle, way back in 1994 when a fresh-faced Liberal government led by Dr. John Savage began the process of regionalizing Nova Scotia’s local health authorities because… well, because everyone else was doing it, and because some experts said it would save money. Then fast...
Physician assistants? It shouldn’t be that hard. Really
The province has announced a pilot program to see if it's safe to let physician assistants into our health care system. They already operate legally in much of the US, Ontario, Manitoba, New Brunswick and in the Canadian military. So why just a modest pilot project? We're glad you asked.
A September announcement that the province’s health department plans to launch a new pilot project to road-test the use of physician assistants had somehow passed over — or under — my Spidey-sense news radar until it popped up again, almost incidentally, near the end of a news report Friday. The Friday story focused on new...
When a healthcare crisis is an opportunity… for an “important milestone” moment photo-op
While our healthcare crises multiply, our leaders stage photo opportunities that resemble trying to slap Band-Aids on the backsides of rampaging elephants. Whatever happened to political leadership?
So last week, 10 out of 37 hospital emergency departments in Nova Scotia were closed for at least some part of the week. The Musquodoboit Valley Memorial Hospital won in the best-in-worst category: its emergency department was scheduled to be closed for a total of five days last week, only finally reopening its doors on...
The McNeil government is going for the secrecy gold medal
Is Nova Scotia Canada’s most secretive jurisdiction? Or does it just act that way? Consider a few especially egregious, not-at-all-transparent episodes from just the last week.
Is Nova Scotia Canada’s most secretive jurisdiction? Or does it just act that way? Consider a few especially egregious, not-at-all-transparent episodes from just the last week. Let’s start with the latest on plans to build a new 126,000-sq. ft. community outpatient healthcare facility in Bayers Lake Business Park. Though the facility is ostensibly going to...
Crisis? What crisis? Just a(nother) ‘new (lack of) direction’ for healthcare
Last week's "mutual" firing of the province's deputy health minister shows just how unwilling our premier is to acknowledge our healthcare crisis — let alone do something about it.
Last week, when Premier Stephen McNeil “mutually” agreed to fire Denise Perret — the deputy minister of health he’d hired just two-and-a-half years ago — he explained it was because “we’re now re-setting and moving in a new direction.” He did not explain what he was re-setting from or to, or in what new yellow-brick-road...