Health-care status quo not good enough

Although Nova Scotia Health Minister Randy Delorey often points out that he lives next door to Cape Breton,

he’s apparently still too far away to hear people’s cries for a solution to our island’s health-care crisis.

When it’s the middle of the night (or day) and there are no ambulances available in the CBRM (an increasingly common situation), that’s a pretty clear sign that something has to change. Yet when the Liberals introduced their budget this past week, it was all status quo where Cape Bretoners’ health is concerned.

Let’s look at what that status quo is: entire floors of hospitals being occupied by seniors waiting for nursing home beds. Pregnant women going without prenatal care. Youth being sent off the island for mental health services. People in crisis being sent by ambulance to Antigonish for emergency surgery.

It’s a complete mess of a situation, and it’s getting worse every day. But the premier and health minister - who pride themselves in being good financial managers - don’t seem to get that their approach is costing the province dearly.

For instance: over five years, patients waiting for long-term care in Nova Scotia have occupied 718,230 hospital bed days, costing the province more than $933 million. And in five years, the Liberal government has opened exactly zero nursing home beds.

It’s hard to understand why, given all this, the health minister talks about the future with such rosy optimism. Maybe he’s found the fountain of youth and isn’t planning to grow old. Or maybe it’s that his view from across the causeway is clouded by a thick fog of denial and arrogance. Tammy Martin

MLA for Cape Breton Centre NDP Spokesperson for Health