Good call should be old news

It’s good news that the province has decided to hire 13 more nurse practitioners and nine family practice nurses across the province. They are an important part of the health-care system. While this announcement doesn’t replace the need for a plan for more doctors, it is certainly something that many voices have been calling for so we should be glad that the McNeil bureaucracy in Halifax finally got around to seeing the common sense in it. The expression “better late than never” certain applies.

For almost three years now the Liberals have sat idly by – shuffling papers, reorganizing, committee’ing and cutting – while front line health-care professionals have screamed for help and patients have, in too many cases, been left out.

Now, finally, with the system bulging at the seams, seniors waiting in ERs and walk-in clinics to get prescriptions filled, hundreds of people turning up at community meetings to share their frustrations (and an election on the horizon), the McNeil Liberals have nodded their head and said “yes” to nurse practitioners and family practice nurses.

The fact that nurse practitioners and family practice nurses were underused in this province has been painfully obvious to everyone else for years. Thank you, Premier, for catching up! With the McNeil Liberals common sense truly isn’t that common.

Did they really lay awake tossing and turning for three years over what should have been an obvious $3.6 million decision while they happily, hastily opened our chequebook to other pet projects for tens of millions with no questions asked? Where are their priorities? I don’t see the common sense in that. Do you?

There are complicated issues to be solved in this province. If this no-brainer decision took three years, heaven help us all. Imagine how many other common sense, necessary changes or innovations are sitting on McNeil ministers’ desks going nowhere in the business, education and community service portfolios. It’s scary.

Yes, this announcement is good news. But the real story of the McNeil Liberals lies behind the headline.

Tim Houston MLA, Pictou East