HANSARD 10-29
DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS
Speaker: Honourable Charlie Parker
Published by Order of the Legislature by Hansard Reporting Services and printed by the Queen's Printer.
Available on INTERNET at http://www.gov.ns.ca/legislature/HOUSE_BUSINESS/hansard.html
Second Session
THURSDAY, MAY 6, 2010
[Page 2071]
MR. SPEAKER: The honourable member for Argyle.
HEALTH - FAM. DR. SHORTAGE: YARMOUTH
- ADDRESS
HON. CHRISTOPHER D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Speaker, my question through you is to the Minister of Health. In Yarmouth many people still do not have access to a family doctor. The situation has been getting worse and people cannot access the two clinics in Yarmouth, and I'm sure the minister is aware of the Ocean View Family Clinic and the Harbourview family clinic.
As a former government, we established these clinics as training grounds for non-Canadian licenced doctors to get their Canadian licence and see them become established in the community - but this has not been the case and every one of these new doctors has moved away. Family doctors are at capacity and cannot accept new patients, and as a result people have to go to the emergency room to have small routine issues addressed - it's hardly a kind of efficiency that we need in our health care system. Mr. Speaker, my question for the minister is, what is your plan to address the family doctor shortage in Yarmouth and throughout the tri-county region?
HON. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for a very important question. I do understand that there has been a loss of some family doctors through the International Medical Graduate Program, the CAP program, in the Yarmouth area. The Department of Health works very closely with the district health authority; we're working with the South West Health DHA to attract family physicians in that area. We do have a number of programs that will offer debt assistance to new graduates who are prepared to locate in a particular area, and the Yarmouth area is a priority area for us because of the loss of family physicians.
MR. D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Speaker, recently doctors had a meeting in Halifax with the Department of Health officials where the doctors from Yarmouth were told that there is no doctor shortage in Yarmouth - this despite the fact that many, if not thousands of people in the tri-counties do not have access to a family doctor. We need to address the situation of foreign doctors becoming physician transients, at the Ocean View Family Clinic and at the Harbourview family clinic, to the frustration and disappointment of the residents of southwestern Nova Scotia.
My question to the minister is, will the minister listen to the people of Yarmouth and southwestern Nova Scotia and make a commitment to the community on coming up with solutions that will address the doctor shortage in the short term and plan for a long-term doctor commitment?
[Page 2072]
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, as I was saying, we do have a variety of programs - we assist in funding site visits, for example, for physicians who want to come to a community and learn more about what's available in that community, and we do have the assistance for debt that physicians have accrued when they go through the very lengthy process of medical school in return for service to a particular community. So these programs are available. We work closely with the DHA and we will continue to do so.
I think one of the difficulties, as I understand it, with physicians coming to this part of Nova Scotia has been the inability to secure employment for spouses, which increasingly is a growing concern that we're seeing in some communities - but we will continue to work very closely with the DHAs to ensure that we have family practices throughout our province.
MR. D'ENTREMONT: Mr. Speaker, I've received lots of letters from concerned citizens in Yarmouth who do not have access to a family doctor, people like Roland Melanson from Yarmouth. Mr. Melanson has had 14 different family doctors since 1980 and has health-related issues that require him to go and wait eight to 10 hours at the Yarmouth emergency room to have 15-minute consultations that could have been conducted by a family physician.
The minister has the responsibility to Nova Scotians to offer better than what the people of Yarmouth are currently receiving. Now is the time to help the people of southwestern Nova Scotia have improved access to family doctors. Instead of reducing funding to Dalhousie Medical School, will the minister consider increasing the number of seats at Dalhousie, in return for service in rural areas of Nova Scotia?
MS. MAUREEN MACDONALD: Mr. Speaker, we have a working group in the department in discussions with Dalhousie Medical School with respect to the seats that we fund at the school, which we want to continue to fund. We do have reciprocal service agreements. We were able to recruit, and there is a new physician in the Barrington area of southwest Nova Scotia, and we will continue to work to ensure that there is good family practice coverage for residents of Yarmouth and the tri-county area.