NDP leader advocating for healthcare access issues in Cape Breton
The leader of the provincial New Democratic Party (NDP) visited with ER doctors, people within the building trades, the Cape Breton Food Hub and elected officials on a recent trip into Cape Breton.
“So we did a lot in a few days,” Claudia Chender told The Reporter as she was getting ready to leave the island. “In particularly in CBRM, to get a sense of how things are going a year into this new government and what we can do to help.”
As for what she heard, she explained while it wasn’t necessarily Cape Breton-specific and were recurring themes she’s been hearing in every community across the province, there were issues unique to the island.
“For so many people the twin challenges of health care and affordability are huge in Cape Breton just like they are on the mainland, but particularly, in healthcare there are major access issues in Cape Breton that are somewhat unique,” Chender said. “Certainly we heard about paramedics both being able to offload their patients and being able to respond in a timely way.”
During a healthcare forum with Cape Breton Centre MLA Kendra Coombes, they had a long conversation about the challenges of cardiac care on the island.
“We don’t have the same ability to treat someone who’s having a cardiac event here in CBRM or anywhere in Cape Breton that we do on the mainland,” Chender said. “Having that capability in Cape Breton would really change people’s health outcomes.”
While there’s a lot to celebrate throughout Cape Breton, she highlighted they need to make sure no one is left behind and there’s a lot that still needs to be done so people don’t have to travel to Halifax to get basic things they deserve to have accessible to them in their community.
After a year into the Tim Houston’s Conservative government, the NDP leader said what the election showed her was people are overwhelmingly concerned with the state of healthcare and elected a government who promised to fixed it.
“And I think, by in large, they’re still willing to give that project the benefit of the doubt. But the reality is, the metrics have gotten worse on every front,” Chender said. “So there’s more people waiting for a family doctor, there’s more people waiting to have surgery. The emergency rooms on the island are closed more than they have ever been.”
Even though the metrics seem to have gotten worse, she still believes there is hope that changes will still come.
“My roll and my focus is making sure we advocate for those changes that need to happen, that we make sure people are connected to primary care,” Chender said. “When the NDP were elected, we also had a problem with emergency rooms right across Nova Scotia being closed on a regular basis, and our solution to that was collaborative emergency centres.”
A model that made sure people who didn’t have access to primary care or didn’t have an emergency room could still access care.
“We believe that should be expanded. That doesn’t just have to physicians, it could also be nurse practitioners, and physician assistants, and even expanding midwifery to make sure people have access to appropriate medical care here,” Chender said. “We’re going to keep pushing for that and I think there is a lot of receptivity to that here.”
She wants to make sure that those families who are struggling, know that government have their back and are responding to them, as she thinks people are a little concerned right now.
According to statistics provided by the NDP, in the last 12 months, within the Eastern Zone, approximately 10,000 people have left the emergency department without being seen last year, an increase of 47 per cent from the year before.
“I think it’s awful. You go to emergency because you’re able to get through to 811 and they recommend you go, or you’re really concerned,” Chender said. “You might not have had a heart attack but you could have had a really bad cut or you have a terrible infection that you don’t know how to manage or you simply don’t have a family doctor, but after 10 hours, yes you need medical care, but you don’t want to wait any longer.”
What that tells them, she said, is that Nova Scotians aren’t getting the health care they need.
“We live in a country that guarantees access to healthcare, so that’s a big problem,” Chender said. “It’s a problem that really needs to be addressed immediately, and we haven’t seen the action that Cape Bretoners and Nova Scotians need to see on that file.”
As of Aug. 1, there were 11,196 Cape Bretoners on the waitlist for a family doctor, a number up from 8,673 in August 2021.
Chender advised she’s overdue to spend a little time in the Strait Area so a more-local stop will be on her included on her next trip to Cape Breton.