HALIFAX — Nova Scotia Liberal leader Zach Churchill has pledged to build 20 new collaborative care centres and expand services at 20 existing clinics as a way to help tackle the province’s stubbornly long family doctor wait-list. Outside Soldiers Memorial Hospital in Middleton, N.S.
, in the Annapolis Valley, Churchill discussed part of his party's vision for health care, which includes more clinics where doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other health professionals collaborate under one roof. As of October, the province’s primary care registry listed 145,000 Nova Scotians without a family doctor. Churchill said access to care is particularly difficult in rural areas where patients without family doctors often end up in emergency rooms — if they are open.
“At this hospital, the emergency department has been closed more than it’s been open over the last three years,” he said. “Collaborative care centres are proven to be an effective model for providing people with quality care, and they will certainly attach patients to doctors and primary care providers.” The government says that across the province there are already 107 collaborative teams working in about 50 clinics that are in various stages of development.
The 20 new clinics the Liberals are promising would cost about $40 million — a bill the party plans to amortize over 25 years, bringing the estimated yearly capital cost to $1.6 million. To encourage health workers to staff the new centres, the Liberals.