Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil says his government needs to step up to ensure Nova Scotians have access to primary care.
In a year-end interview with Global News, McNeil acknowledged that Nova Scotians who don’t have a family doctor are “frustrated” and “worried.”
“Nova Scotians should expect access to primary health care,” he said. “We as a government have a responsibility to continue to work to deliver that to them. We know we need to do better, we know we’re not there yet, that is very clear.”
McNeil faced heavy criticism during the May provincial election over his unfulfilled declaration from the 2013 election when he promised a doctor for every Nova Scotian. But McNeil convinced voters to give him a chance to complete what he started.
Since the election, a steady drip of stories about families struggling to find a family doctor and a pile on of other stories that point to gaps elsewhere in health care have dogged McNeil’s government.
WATCH: In his year-end interview with Global News, Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil says he needs to do better on health care.
And the wait list for family doctors has ballooned since it was launched last year. As of Dec. 1 there were 42,198 Nova Scotians on the provincial wait list.
“No Nova Scotian as they age should have to worry about access to primary health care and that’s the challenge, whether its 1 or 10 or 1,000 or 10,000,” McNeil said.
Asked for the one item that keeps him up at night, McNeil said it was getting Nova Scotians access to primary care.
“They’re frustrated, they’re worried, I understand that,” he said. “It’s frustrating sometimes on our end trying to attract and provide them with the health care teams that we have and put them in the right places in those communities.”
While he says tackling the problem is “the number one priority of the government,” he doesn’t think the level of access got worse under his four years in government.
“I don’t believe its gotten worse under our government,” he said.
Throughout his time in politics McNeil said “the uncertainty and anxiety (that) Nova Scotians feel without access to primary health care has always been real and there.”
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Family doctors’ pay is ‘attractive enough’: McNeil
The Nova Scotia Health Authority and Doctors Nova Scotia have both said that one part of the complex puzzle of primary care is boosting doctor’s pay.
But McNeil said that’s not what he’s hearing from doctors.
“What I’m hearing from providers is it’s not about my contract,” he said. Adding that infrastructure like upgrades to the Dartmouth General Hospital are what help recruit and retain doctors.
“We have a compensation package that reflects Nova Scotia’s ability to pay and that’s attractive enough to retain health care providers.”
WATCH: Premier Stephen McNeil on doctors pay in Nova Scotia
The Nova Scotia Health Authority posted a video two weeks ago in which its vice president of medicine, Dr. Lynne Harrigan, calls the uneven pay between different medical specialties “inequitable.”
“We should fight for our family doctors to get more pay in their communities,” said Harrigan.
The current contract with doctors expires in 2019.