Community health centres need stable funding, a seat at the table, advocates tell public accounts committee
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Dartmouth South NDP MLA Claudia Chender highlighted the importance of Heide’s words. She said lack of access to primary care is costing lives across the province.
“We have these clinics, these care centres, however we want to define them. This is so clearly the answer,” Chender said.
While doctors and recruitment and retention are “super important,” Chender said there will never be a doctor for every Nova Scotian.
“The most important thing is that we actually change the model, because the model we have doesn’t work and it’s not going to.”
Lagassé told Chender the department knows a new model is required, and that health centres and other community-based organizations are a “very large part of that.” She added they do need to ensure they’re doing it “across the system” and not doing something now that could have future implications that aren’t good for the province as a whole.
Chender said providing core operational funding to the sexual health clinic and their centres and to the community health centres across the province wouldn’t create any negative consequences.
“What it would do is it would help with retention, it would ensure that the patients currently covered continue to be covered, and it would recognize that whatever the plan is, this is the model, this is the beginning of the model,” Chender said.
“The details need to be worked out, but we know that we need wraparound care, we need a different kind of care. Yes, a new model takes time, but we have a government of solutionists who are not afraid to make quick and bold decisions about things that are important. This is the most important.”
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