NO QUICK FIXES
About 70 people turned out to the first of three community sessions on Feb. 6 to hear the message from health officials.
The hospital currently only has enough emergency room physicians to operate eight hours a day. Nixon acknowledged it is a daunting task to think of finding the needed physicians when doctors are in short supply across the country.
But she noted the region has been successful in the last couple of years of attracting doctors here.
“I am confident, that with the community’s help, we’ll continue to be successful,” she said.
ACCESSING SERVICES
The emergency department saw 9,325 patients from
April 1 to Jan. 31 with 60 per cent of them having needs that could have been seen in another health-care setting. Some of the common concerns included cough and congestion, prescription refills, abdominal pain, back pain, sore throats and earaches.
When Paradise’s Bob Maher asked on Feb. 6 how many in the room were without a family doctor, most hands shot up.
“The problem for me is not the emergency department. The problem for me is if you don’t have family doctors, guess where people are going to go?” he said.
“You’ve got to start with identifying problems before they get to the emergency (department).”
There are more than 5,000 people on the Need a Family Practice Registry in the MidValley region, which runs from Bridgetown to Aylesford. With doctors handling
about 1,300 patients, residents in the crowd quickly did the math to determine four new doctors would be needed to address the situation.
“In a perfect world, if we have four family doctors drop out of the sky, then maybe I might be able to get attached to one of those family doctors,” Maher said.
But he isn’t holding his breath.
When Chris Bradley asked how many in the room had used virtual care, only a couple hands went up.
“It’s brilliant,” he said. “In my opinion, it’s better than having a family doctor. I do it from the kitchen while having a cup of coffee.”
He has lived in Middleton for 2.5 years and doesn’t have a family doctor. He urged residents to take advantage of the services that exist.
Bradley said the longest he has had to wait for a callback was about an hour compared to waiting a couple of weeks for an in-person appointment.
More than 51,000 Nova Scotians have registered within the VirtualCareNS Program.
Nixon said she was surprised by the number of people who hadn’t used virtual care in the region.
“But hopefully the discussion today will increase participants’ level of comfort with that as an option,” she said. “Virtual care is an additional access point and one that does an incredible job connecting people to a network of care if they need further care.”
Addressing the situation Residents were appreciative of the health-care workers who spoke at the meeting and the work they and their peers are doing to help find a solution.
While pleased there are many committed people working to improve the situation, Bradley said he was disappointed provincial politicians through successive governments didn’t better prepare given the demographics of health-care professionals.
“They all knew this was coming and they did nothing about it,” he said. “A lot of the politicians in the province over the years should be ashamed of themselves.”