High number of doctorless patients visiting ER

Health minister says efforts contine to improve care for those without family doctors

TRURO, N.S. — Emergency room visits by patients without a family doctor in Truro are far greater than the provincial average, according to new numbers released by the NDP.

And those numbers are continuing to grow at an alarming rate, according to Lenore Zann, MLA for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River.

“These numbers are shocking,” Zann said, in a news release issued Tuesday morning.

“People’s access to health care has gotten far worse since Stephen McNeil came to office in 2013.”

Zann said a Freedom of Information request obtained by the NDP Caucus shows the number of visits to the Colchester East Hants Health Centre by patients without a family doctor increased by 257 per cent from 2013 to 2018.

That was second highest in the province with the greatest surge occurring at Valley Regional Hospital, which saw a 264-per-cent increase in unattached patients.

Dartmouth General was third highest at 217 per cent.

In 2018 there were 3,158 people without a family doctor who went to the emergency room at Colchester Regional. That’s almost four times as many as the 883 people who visited the emergency room without a family physician in 2013.

And that leaves Truro with one of the highest increases in the province with such visits, she said.

“People in Colchester County should be able to access health care when they need it,” said Zann. “I hear from nurses, doctors, and paramedics who tell me that the situation at the regional hospital is getting more and more difficult. We need to see some serious investments to solve this crisis.”

According to the NDP figures, the number of people attending an ER without a family doctor across the province increased 112 per cent between 2013 and 2018.

The total emergency room visits from unattached patients across the province last year was 47,948.

However, Health and Wellness Minister Randy Delorey, said those numbers do not necessarily show a complete picture because there is no information in the released figures to indicate whether they represent individual person visits or repeat visits by patients dealing with chronic illnesses.

“We do know that the visits to emergency departments have been going up but that’s across the entire population,” the minister said, in a telephone interview with the Truro News.

“And I guess there’s just not enough data to draw the types of conclusions that I think the NDP have done so today.”

Delorey said since April 2018, Nova Scotia has hired 120 new physicians across the province, of which almost half are family doctors. And health-care professionals have also been hired to work with those doctors in primary care settings as part of collaborative care teams.

“For those Nova Scotians that are unattached (to a family doctor) we recognize that as a concern.”

But he said recent efforts by the province have resulted in almost 70,000 residents who have found a family doctor or become attached to a family practice in the past two years.

“So, we do know that our work has been having a positive impact for Nova Scotians,” Delorey said.