N.S. NDP says patients being turned away from emergency rooms

The Nova Scotia NDP says some people are being turned away from emergency rooms.

There are serious accusations coming from Nova Scotia’s New Democratic Party about people being turned away from emergency rooms.

The NDP held a news conference in front of the Cobequid Health Centre in Lower Sackville on Wednesday morning where NDP leader Claudia Chender and area MLA Paul Wozney spoke about conditions at the facility.

Wozney says he recently got a call from an ER doctor saying staff were overwhelmed with patients and were turning people away, including one who had suffered a stroke.

“Morale is not good. We keep talking about wanting to recruit and retain health-care professionals, but this is a site where people don’t want to stay and work in the long run because they’re constantly caught between a rock and a hard place,” Wozney says.

Wozney wrote to Health Minister Michelle Thompson about the situation at the centre and says he has yet to receive a response.

The Cobequid Health Centre has the second busiest ER in the province, according to Wozney, serving people from Sackville, Bedford, Dartmouth even the Annapolis valley.

Nova Scotia Health released a statement late Wednesday afternoon refuting that claim, saying the Halifax Infirmary and Valley Regional Hospital emergency departments are both busier based on data collected between June 1, 2024 and Wednesday.

Nova Scotia Health says they are working to ensure the flow of patients from their arrival in the emergency department, through their initial care, and if necessary to inpatient care is as timely as possible.

Nova Scotia Health also mentioned there is a multi-pronged approach to reducing wait times for patients at Cobequid. This includes a focus on reducing ambulance offload times, monitoring patients while they wait, as well as efficiently triaging patients in the emergency department using a new pilot program.

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