Nova Scotia Health Minister Michelle Thompson says staff at Nova Scotia Health are telephoning the roughly 160,000 people on the registry to make sure they know how to access 'different options for care.'Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press
Nova Scotia’s health minister says the province is trying to “validate” whether everyone on the wait-list for family medicine is still looking for a physician or nurse practitioner.
Michelle Thompson says it is the second time in two years the government is checking the wait-list for people without a family practice.
She says staff at Nova Scotia Health are telephoning the roughly 160,000 people on the registry to make sure they know how to access “different options for care.”
Thompson says the health authority needs to understand who is on the list and what their needs are, and to remove people who have found a family doctor or nurse practitioner.
The opposition parties say they are concerned that the government is eager to have the list trimmed because it has become embarrassing to Premier Tim Houston, whose central promise of the last election campaign was to improve health care.
However, Thompson says the goal is not only to take people off the list but also to inform them of ways they can access care.