More health care professionals will serve Western Nova Scotia.
The province announced $3.6 million toward the hiring of 13 nurse practitioners and nine family practice nurses across the province.
14,000 more Nova Scotians will have access to primary care, thanks to 22 more nurse practitioners & family practice nurses. pic.twitter.com/xsON7qXeAn
— Nova Scotia Gov. (@nsgov) September 28, 2016
The Nova Scotia Health Authority says four professionals will work with collaborative health care teams to serve up to 2,400 more patients in the Digby, Clare, Weymouth, Shelburne and Lockeport areas.
There have been many emergency room closures at Digby General Hospital this year due to a lack of doctors, and people in Weymouth have been without a full-time family doctor for months now.
Authority spokesperson Fraser Mooney says this announcement will provide relief in those areas.
“The Family Practice Nurse that we are going to be able to hire in the Digby County area will help serve people of Weymouth and other areas. The more people that have access to primary health care means that they won’t have to visit the emergency department.”
This is welcome news for Liberal Clare-Digby MLA Gordon Wilson.
Wilson says this will help areas like Weymouth that have been struggling to find family doctors.
‘We look at these things as regions and the core areas where we provide services out of, so any addition of access to primary health care in those areas will benefit every single citizen in the region”
Mooney says two new nurse practitioners have already been hired for Digby County, one under this funding arrangement.
The rest of the hires for Western Nova Scotia will be done over the next month.
