Dartmouth Collaborative Practice Health Teams - Question Period
MS. CLAUDIA CHENDER « » : Mr. Speaker, a few weeks ago, the minister announced that two collaborative family practice teams would be coming to Dartmouth and another would be expanding. This is good news for Dartmouth where 40 per cent of our family doctors will retire within five years.
I'm worried though that these investments won't be enough to deal with the acute need in my community, which I certainly see every day in my office. Can the minister tell the House exactly how many Dartmouth residents these collaborative practice teams will take off the waiting list?
HON. RANDY DELOREY « » : I don't have the numbers for those specific sites with me. What I can assure the member is that any time you're bringing new primary care providers - be they physicians, nurse practitioners, family practice nurses - to the front lines, to our communities, they're seeing patients. They're making sure that Nova Scotians - in this case, her residents in Dartmouth - are seeing the right health care provider for their primary health care needs.
MS. CHENDER « » : In Dartmouth alone, 7,834 people are on the waiting list for a family doctor. From January 1st to March 1st, 2,280 people in the central zone added their names to the waiting list. That doesn't take in those who have gotten on the list yet.
According to the NSHA, there are also currently 35 family physician vacancies in the central zone. Dartmouth is headed for primary care chaos. Can the minister tell me when Dartmouth residents can expect family physician vacancies to be filled in our community?
MR. DELOREY « » : Efforts for recruiting physicians and other primary care health providers in Dartmouth and across the province are obviously ongoing, Mr. Speaker, and will continue until the needs are met.
In addition to that, this government has taken steps to work with our partners at Doctors Nova Scotia to identify new funding formulas and programs to incentivize physicians to address these needs, to address and take on more patients within their practice. These are all steps that are going to positively affect all Nova Scotians finding primary care services in their communities.
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