Nova Scotia’s PC government revealed a multi-point plan Wednesday to address problems in emergency rooms and improve ambulance response times.
Premier Tim Houston says a number of the initiatives began as pilot projects and are about to move forward permanently.
“Some are real short term. Having like, a customer service really, a patient advocate in the emergency rooms, talking to people, communicating with people, making sure they understand the process,” says Houston. “We expect to see that rolled out really quick, possibly this weekend. Some of the others things will be over the next couple of weeks.
“I think the important thing is, a lot of these things have been in the works, so we kind of know what it’s going to take to roll them out, but we know that there’s work to be done and this is our first step,” he added.
Houston has said the plan could cost “tens of millions of dollars,” but an exact dollar figure hasn’t been released.
“We know there’s a lot of work to do in the system and I’ve always been very clear that it’s going to cost money. We’re making those investments and it’s going to take time, and it is taking time, it’s easy to get impatient. I’m impatient as well.”
During Wednesday’s news conference announcing the plan, Karen Oldfield, the president and CEO of Nova Scotia Health, said the province has the necessary funding, experience and political will to make change.
But the province is struggling with a lack of health-care workers -- something pointed out by critics of the plan.
Houston says there are “a couple” aspects to addressing the problem, such as allowing health-care workers to do everything for which they are trained.
“But we know that retention is an issue as well. It’s a tough environment for sure, so we need to make sure we’re respecting health-care workers in how they’re paid, in their work environments. If we start getting those things better, then recruitment is kind of a follow on that,” he says. “But certainly we need people. There’s not enough people, we’re not alone, there’s not enough people in the province, so we’ll look to recruit from other areas.”
The Nova Scotia Government and General Employees Union is critical of the plan, saying there's nothing to retain skilled nurses in emergency departments.
Houston says making jobs, and the quality and work-life balance, stronger should help retain people.
“Compensation is part of it, but there are other parts of it as well, and I don’t think we should lose sight of that -- we won’t as a government.”
The new plan involves several types of actions across the health-care system, leading some to wonder how everything will work together.
Houston says it’s “not perfect” but improvements will be made over time.
“Don’t forget as well, we put out an Action for Health Care plan in this province. We have a website, people can go and see that. These are initiatives that we’ve been working on. A lot of the planning and execution in some cases with pilot projects is already happening. The rollout is critical.”
There may also be a deal between the provinces and the federal government for increased health-care funding.
“Money is necessary, the investments are necessary, the federal government, you know, we’re hopeful they will be there as partners on the funding,” says Houston. “The system that we designed a generation ago needs to change. The world’s different now and there’s more chronic conditions and the system was designed in many ways for acute care.”
Houston says the province is working with Ottawa to help doctors who study in the provinces stay and avoid having to leave due to citizenship red tape.
“Definitely working on the licence process to make sure it’s streamlined and we have quality people, we can’t sacrifice the quality, but if the qualifications are there, the process has to be smooth,” he says. “Immigration is part of it -- that’s part of the things we can partner with the federal government. Money we can partner with, immigration we can partner with, technology, leadership – there’s lots we can do.”
Houston also says he may think about more private-public partnerships “if necessary.”
“We made a very similar announcement to the one that Ontario made, we made it back in the summer, same things -- if people are waiting for eye surgery was the one we announced initially, where they get that surgery is less of a concern as to when they get it. They want those surgeries and it’s still public pay, we’ll still pay, instead of just going to a regional hospital, they may go to a clinic somewhere,” he says.
“Nova Scotians have told me, ‘That’s OK we want the surgery.’ And we’ve started with eyes, but like other areas, will move out as necessary. We have to get those lists down, return people’s quality of life.”
