MIDDLETON, N.S. — More than 50 people upset with the state of Nova Scotia’s health care system carried signs and chanted in front of Premier Stephen McNeil’s constituency office Oct. 28.
They even sang a health care crisis version of Farewell to Nova Scotia.
They want doctors. They want a thousand long-term care beds. They want to cut Nova Scotia Health Authority management and use the money saved for better health care.
Leslie Tilley, who organized the protest, used a bullhorn to get her message across and warned McNeil that the ‘Healthcare Hurricane’ is coming and he better be ready for it. She said the protest was to fight for the right of proper health care for every citizen in Nova Scotia.
“Stephen McNeil, you promised every Nova Scotian would have a family doctor,” she said. “Well, where are they? You can’t even admit we have a health care crisis when close to 100,000 people are without a family doctor.”
People carried signs that said ‘Honk 4 Health Care,’ ‘People are Dying, Code Critical,’ ‘What are you doing about our Health Crisis?,’ ‘What’s You Plan?,’ ‘Family Doctor Needed,’ and ‘Where are the Doctor’s You Promised?’
Passing motorists honked their horns, television crews were lined up on the sidewalk, and some people took their lunch hour to join the protest.
ACCESS TO DOCTORS
“The issues, as far as I know, from a pastor’s point of view is people not having access to a doctor. Not easily or not at all,” said Christine Gladu, minister at the United Church in nearby Kingston. “And some people that I know have come to the emergency (department) and were just turned away. We need to improve this.”
Her sign said ‘let’s talk,’ and Gladu is all for working things out.
“I am looking at dialogue and research and consultation,” she said. “I think we can all sit down and just see how we can improve this situation at large.”
Tilley said the health care system’s frontline staff is burning out.
“They are all working in a war zone every day,” she said, adding that a thousand more long-term beds would help ease the pressure in hospitals and on paramedics.
Joan Saunders Hawkin was one of the protestors said the takeaway message for McNeil was simple. “We need to see action now. What is the plan?” she asked. “Almost 100,000 people without a doctor. We the tax paying citizens of Nova Scotia demand our rights for proper health care.”
MENTAL HEALTH
Laura Fowler’s son Jackson committed suicide four years ago. She went public about a system that failed her son and through the resultant publicity thought things would change.
“I thought my son died for a reason,” she said. “Four years later still nobody’s getting help. My best friend lost her grandson and his best friend, and then just lost her cousin all within a year.”
She was close to tears as she held a sign that said “How many more must die? Depression Kills. Talk to Someone.” Below the words was a photograph of her son.
“We need help with health care, with the mental (health Care) system, we need better doctors in the mental system,” she said. “We need a better setup and that’s going to take money. I’d rather see money go for that. Places for people struggling or who are in crisis who think ending their life is going to be the only way out of it because there’s no help – places for them to go.”
‘IN CRISIS’
Tilley founded the Facebook group ‘Nova Scotia Health Care in Crisis -- Time to Protest’ that is now up to 7,400 members.
“People are dying and more will die and their blood is on the inefficient government’s hands,” Tilley said during the protest. She said 18,000 people have just lost their family doctors within a 30-kilometre radius of McNeil’s office. “If that isn’t a state of emergency, I don’t know what is,” she said.
“There are people here from Digby, Yarmouth, Bridgewater, that have come that far, and then of course people from The Valley,” she said in an interview as the protest wound down. “We’re going to hold the Nova Scotia government and the Nova Scotia Health Authority accountable for our health care crisis. It is our right as citizens to have proper health care and we have a serious crisis, state of emergency, and they are not doing enough about it.”
MET MINISTER
While people were protesting, on the other end of town in front of Soldiers Memorial Hospital, excavators started that morning to break sod for a new $12-million primary health care centre. Tilley said she was aware of the construction but contends long-term beds would do more to address the health care situation.
She said she met with Health Minister Randy Delorey on Sept. 20 at MLA Leo Glavine’s office.
“We asked him for a thousand long-term care beds,” she said. “Of course, we covered all the facets of what’s going on, but that’s one thing we asked for before Christmas – a thousand long-term beds. And we will even help him find them. I haven’t heard anything back from him yet.”
Tilley said the group will not give up until every Nova Scotian has a family doctor, surgery wait times are down to a minimum, long-term care beds are put in place, and the NSHA is taken care of.
“We will not stop until all is fixed. So wake up Stephen McNeil. Fix this mess,” Tilley said over the bullhorn.
While McNeil wasn’t at his office, Evan Fairn, his constituency office assistant, came out to talk with protesters, listened to their concerns and suggestions, and took notes that he said he would be forwarded to the Premier.
