Nova Scotia NDP calling for inquiry into ER deaths amid ‘awful trend’
The NDP is calling on the province to conduct an investigation into emergency room deaths. The move comes after a 37-year-old Nova Scotia woman died while waiting seven hours for care at an Amherst hospital. New data also shows more people died in emergency rooms in 2022 when compared to previous years.
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Nova Scotia NDP leader Claudia Chender said constituents want to know how the government will “reverse this awful trend.”
“An inquiry into emergency room deaths would help Nova Scotians understand what’s going on in our hospitals and what needs to be done to ensure no other family faces the same tragic situation as the Holthoff’s,” Chender said in a release.
In a Wednesday interview, Chender said “while there’s a tension from this particular tragic story of this family, what we are concerned about is making sure that the system gets better.”
She said while the PC government has talked about quality reviews, the results of those are never made public.
“And they aren’t conducted by independent bodies of any kind or independent experts,” Chender said.
“This government was elected to fix health care, and health care is getting worse.”
Chender said even she, as an elected official and the leader of a party in Nova Scotia, doesn’t know the full story.
“I don’t really know what’s happening and therefore I don’t really know how to fix it,” she said. “I think a public conversation about what is very private in terms of how these situations are dealt with is long overdue.””