Former health minister says Liberals need to make patient care top priority

Former health minister and current NDP leader, Maureen MacDonald, told the Sheldon MacLeod show the waitlist issue at Nova Scotia’s largest emergency department is a problem that’s only getting worse.

“And we know that the Department of Health have been so focused on picking fights with the health care workers that patient care hasn’t been their first priority.”

She said much more needs to be done, not just inside the emergency rooms, but outside them as well.

“Putting more doctors and nurses in the ER is one thing, but there’s limited space,” she said. “You need to be able to improve the flow from the emergency room into other parts of the hospital.”

MacDonald said there was a lot of work done to try and fix ER overcrowding when she served as the province’s health minister, but said all that seems to have fallen off the radar.

“Doctor Ross went around the province and looked at all the emergency rooms in the province and came up with a very good report, with a number of recommendations, and I don’t know what’s happened to Doctor Ross’ work.”

The Chief of Emergency at the Halifax Infirmary said the current ER situation is much worse than it was before when previous administration had called “code orange.”

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