‘I’m doing it because I’m scared’: N.S. woman organizes rally after ER deaths

A Sydney, N.S. woman is organizing a rally to call on the province’s politicians to improve health care once and for all, as news of emergency department deaths make national headlines.

“I’m doing it because I’m scared. I’m scared for myself, scared for my family, my friends, and people on my island and my province,” said Jennifer MacDonald.

The rally, dubbed a ‘March of Concern,’ will be held outside the Cape Breton Regional Municipality city hall on Jan. 21 at 11 a.m.

MacDonald said she was spurred to do something, after news of the deaths of Charlene Snow and Allison Holthoff. Both women died last month after waiting hours for care at two of the province’s emergency departments.

“(Nova Scotia Health Minister) Michelle Thompson has said that ER deaths are unacceptable, so I don’t understand why we’re still accepting them,” said MacDonald.

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Last month, her family experienced the situation firsthand.

MacDonald said they brought her mother-in-law to the Cape Breton Regional Hospital emergency department because of trouble with her heart and some breathing problems.

While waiting, she said they ran into someone they knew, who had been waiting about eight hours and had only consumed a popsicle during that time.

“Another woman that was there … was trying to get some some attention to use the washroom because she was not able to get there herself. And after asking four times, this woman urinated herself,” MacDonald recalled.

After waiting about seven hours, MacDonald said her mother-in-law gave up and left.

It’s an experience many other patients and health-care workers have spoken out about. In early December 2022, an emailed letter to staff at the Dartmouth General Hospital said the pressure on the ER had risen to a point where there was no space to assess patients, and one in 10 people weren’t being seen — giving up and leaving.

In an interview aired on The West Block this weekend, Premier Tim Houston said he takes it “very personally” when someone is lost in “tragic situations” like the ones that have made headlines.

He also said Canada’s health-care system is “on the ropes.”

“I believe in the public system, and I think that we can work together as provinces with the federal government to salvage our system of Medicare,” he said.

MacDonald said she organized the upcoming rally to send a message to Houston and other politicians.

She wants to know if the premier will hold an emergency session in the legislature, as requested by the opposition. She also wants to ask Houston whether he plans to address the health-care situation during his visit to Cape Breton to speak to the business community later this month.

“Would you meet with relevant members of the medical community to hear their suggestions for improving things?” she said.

She said people in the province are “scared” that when they need live-saving health care, it won’t be there.

“I don’t know the answers. I certainly don’t get paid to come up with the answers. And that is not my job. That is their job, and I don’t feel like they’re doing it,” she said.

“If you can’t address this, can you at least tell us you can’t? Can you at least say people are going to die? Because if that’s the case, there’s a lot of us that have to make some plans. And we just want honesty and we want to be spoken to as people.”

MacDonald said she’s under no illusion it will require more than a rally and letters to politicians to enact change.  However, she believes it’s important everyday citizens apply pressure and speak out.

“I don’t normally do this kind of thing. I’m absolutely terrified doing this kind of thing. But I really felt compelled to do it because I feel like this is the time,” she said.

“When you have people in an emergency room and they die, they’re. It’s time to say something.”

— With a file from Rachel Gilmore