HALIFAX, N.S. – Previous Liberal and NDP governments slashed healthcare spending, demoralized healthcare professionals and drove doctors out of the province.
Liberal Leader Zach Churchill was a cabinet minister with the previous Liberal government and held top portfolios, including the Minister of Health. Claudia Chender is taking advice from the same Dexter crew that caused the healthcare crisis.
Zach Churchill and Claudia Chender broke healthcare. The PCs are fixing it.
“Healthcare professionals remember what it was like working under the Liberal and NDP governments - low pay, low morale, and less access to care,” said PC Candidate Barb Adams “Only Tim Houston’s PCs have made meaningful investments to make it happen for better healthcare.”
As the Liberal Health Minister, Zach Churchill failed to:
- Recruit, train, and retain more doctors.
- Ensure the province is training enough nurses.
- Open more access to care.
- Cut red tape for internationally trained healthcare professionals to practice in Nova Scotia.
- Ensure residents of his constituency of Yarmouth and Sydney can quickly access care in Halifax through a new LifeFlight ambulance.
As Liberal Leader, Zach Churchill also opposed providing nurses and other healthcare workers with a retention bonus. As a Minister in the former Liberal government for eight years, he also failed to treat healthcare workers with the respect they deserve.
Claudia Chender’s NDP has been negative about every proposed solution, including:
- Partnerships with Google Cloud will enable healthcare professionals to make enhanced and quicker decisions.
- The YourHealthNS app connects Nova Scotians to healthcare access points and provides them with access to their health records.
- Offering virtual care for lower-tier inquiries, such as prescription renewals.
- Entering public/private partnerships to enable more Nova Scotians to have surgeries sooner.
Claudia Chender also called it "completely ridiculous" to launch a challenge fund for healthcare workers to submit their ideas on improving the healthcare system.
Only Tim Houston’s PC Party has a strong record of making things happen in healthcare, including:
- A second medical school campus for Nova Scotia focused on rural practice.
- Offering 400 more nursing school seats and offering each graduate a job.
- Opening more than 40 pharmacy primary care clinics so Nova Scotians can receive care for common and minor ailments, chronic disease management, and prescription renewals.
- Offering free tuition to train more paramedics, emergency medical responders, and continuing care assistants.
- Reducing red tape for physicians by over 400,000 hours.
- Covering the cost of sensor-based glucose monitors for those with diabetes.
“Nova Scotians can’t trust those who broke healthcare to find the solutions,” said PC Candidate Barb Adams. “Only the PC Party have a record of making things happen to improve healthcare.