Ex-health board member fears for diversity

A former member of the Nova Scotia Health Authority board said the Progressive Conservative government's move to remove volunteer directors raises concerns about diversity and inclusion in health care.

“We were just starting to feel our groove as a board,” said Omisoore Dryden, who was appointed as the first Black person to sit on the board just last March, in an interview Thursday.

“I think we're disappointed in not being able to carry out that work. There are concerns across various communities, there seems to be a dismissal of the concerns around representation. Why isn't equity and inclusion central to the plan you're rolling out?”

Dryden, who holds the James R. Johnston Chair in Black Canadian studies at Dalhousie University's school of medicine, said she found Premier Tim Houston's response to those concerns “really disturbing. It was one that dismissed the concerns around equity and inclusion. It felt tone deaf around the decades of representation. He could have said yes this is where we find ourselves and this is where we are.”

Dryden was referring to the premier's comments at a news briefing Wednesday when he said Nova Scotia voters elected not to send any Progressive Conservative candidates of colour to the legislature.

The premier echoed those comments at a news briefing Thursday when responding to a question about the fact a white man, Pat Dunn, will be the minister of African Nova Scotian affairs.

“I understand the emotions and I'm very respectful of the concerns of communities as we talk about it,” Houston said. “There's a certain reality. The members of my cabinet will be elected officials, that's it, full stop . ... I have a caucus of 31 Nova Scotians, community leaders each and every one of them, I'm very proud of the caucus we have.

"We also have 24 people who ran for the PC Party who were not elected and I'm saddened by that because there's a number of them I felt would be. We ran the most diverse slate of candidates but the people decide . ... There are many things we can do in the bureaucracy and take the steps to make sure that the community understands that their voices will be heard, that their concerns will be respected And we'll always continue to look for ways to do that.”

Dryden noted the PCS also fired a Black woman, Kesa Munroe-anderson, from her job as deputy minister of communities, culture and heritage.

Munroe-anderson could not be contacted for comment.

Dryden said she found out about her removal from the NSHA board, and the disbanding of the board, in an email on Wednesday morning from the health minister's office.

Houston replaced the 15 directors with new NSHA administrator Janet Davidson.

She said she expected there would be changes in the health-care team with a new government, especially given that health was the main plank in the PCS' platform, but “I was surprised, I was kind of stunned, I knew there would be changes but I guess I didn't envision it in that way.

And then I was just disappointed and curious, it created some questions for me in terms of how they'd be moving forward.”

The new health minister, Michelle Thompson, called her and the other former members of the NSHA board, later Wednesday. Dryden said it was a brief conversation in the afternoon.

“It was a lovely conversation actually and in that call the minister acknowledged that myself and others must be disappointed and she was looking forward to speaking with me and others after they did the tour of the province.”

Thompson, the premier and other NSHA staff plan to talk with front-line workers across Nova Scotia about what needs to be done to improve health care.

During their conversation, Dryden said she asked Thompson how the government plans to address health disparities and inequities, systemic racism and anti-black racism.

She said Thompson told her she didn't know but she would get that information.

“In all of their statements, they didn't mention anything about that . ... It's fine for a new government to say we want to put our own stamp on this . ... I guess my concern is, why throw Black people out with the bath water? And that's what it feels like, I'm not saying that's what they've done, but that's what it feels like.”

Asked what her goals would have been if she'd been kept on as a director, Dryden said she and her former colleague Stephen Augustine, who was the first Mi'kmaw NSHA director, would have worked to make sure the health-care needs of the African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaw people would be represented.

“We were responding to the concerns they raised about having culturally competent physicians, culturally competent care,” she said. “We were reading a lot in the news about African Nova Scotian and Mi'kmaw experiences with racism in getting blood tests and getting X-rays, you know post-surgery complications, all of these things.

“So we wanted to make sure that the board was directing Nova Scotia Health and really engaging in more equitable protocols to make sure that care was more equitably given.”