Spring session ends with health, security concerns
Lasted about a week too long for the McNeil government
Premier Stephen McNeil appears to be losing patience with the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA), joining hundreds of health professionals and thousands of doctorless Nova Scotians.
“Unacceptable” is McNeil’s adjective of choice, particularly when admitting to his government’s weaknesses, and he directed the rebuke at the NSHA on a bevy of occasions this week.
The premier is not exactly famed for equanimity, but his fuse seemed to be burning even shorter than usual during the final days of a spring session that won’t add much content to the government’s highlight reel.
The legislature closed Wednesday amid questions about the growing number of Nova Scotians looking for a family doctor, and the lax security on a government website which resulted in exposure of the personal information of hundreds of Nova Scotians.
NDP leader Gary Burrill noted that when the current session opened last October, there were about 37,000 Nova Scotians listed with the NSHA as seeking a family doctor, and today the number is over 44,000. It’s generally accepted that the actual number of people without a family doctor is more than double those registered with the authority.
While the government claims it is pulling out all the stops to find Nova Scotia more family doctors, the NSHA skipped a convention of rural physicians last weekend in Newfoundland, where every other province was recruiting actively.
McNeil was visibly perturbed by the NSHA’s decision to pass on the recruiting opportunity and said he wants a full explanation as to why the authority choose not to go where the doctors are as part of its recruitment effort. The NSHA’s explanation so far has been that it had fished in that pool before and came home empty.
Premier McNeil also labelled the NSHA’s efforts to deliver palliative care “unacceptable” this week, in response to a growing litany of stories about terminally ill patients and their families stuck in the hallways of hospital ERs at the end of life.
Cape Breton Richmond Tory Alana Paon brought very human stories to the legislature about families gathered for final goodbyes to loved ones amid the oftenfrantic activity of a busy hospital ER corridor.
She praised staff in the Strait Richmond Hospital’s ER, who she said did all in their power to make families and their dying loved one as comfortable as possible, but emergency rooms just aren’t configured for that kind of end-of-life care.
With one of those families in the legislature’s gallery this week, Paon questioned the government about a lack of palliative care capacity and pierced the premier’s conscience.
He said it is “totally unacceptable” that families are not provided with the privacy and dignity that should be their right when facing such loss, although he stopped short of offering the six palliative care beds Paon says the Strait region needs.
“While the government claims it is pulling out all the stops to find Nova Scotia more family doctors, the NSHA skipped a convention of rural physicians last weekend in Newfoundland, where every other province was recruiting actively.”
Among the laws passed in the spring session, one put an end to school boards in Nova Scotia and another framed the regulatory structure for legal cannabis use in the province. The government introduced and passed its third successive balanced budget.
But if final impressions linger, the session may be remembered for the hack that wasn’t. When the government’s freedom of information and protection of privacy portal was inoperable for days on end, questions arose as to the reason.