The Rural Health Care Crisis Working Group will be further refining their efforts to address the ongoing rural health-care crisis at a meeting on Friday, April 6, at the Shelburne Community Centre starting at 1 p.m.
“We’re hoping for this to be a real think session, to really talk about things that address the issues in everybody’s best interests,” said Shelburne Mayor Karen Mattatall, who chairs the group. “We want to find ways to come up with solutions. We want a positive outcome.”
Dana Heide, a member of the group and a former deputy minister of health for the Northwest Territories, will facilitate the meeting.
Mattatall said the group hopes to identify the issues and concerns and try to come up with ideas that are in the best interests of the residents and health-care providers that might help address the issues “that perhaps the decision makers will consider.”
“Our focus has always been the decision makers, trying to get their attention. Make them acknowledge there is a crisis in the health-care system,” she said. “We’re willing to work with them, but we need to have access to doctors, services, ERs everywhere in Nova Scotia. That’s the end goal. We want it to work for everybody.”
The working group, formed a year ago at a meeting in Shelburne, involves municipal leaders, health-care providers and residents from communities throughout the province. Since forming, the group has undertaken various efforts to bring attention to health-care issues in Nova Scotia, including a series of videos on their Facebook page that tell the struggles people are having with accessing health-care services.
The group meets monthly. The next regular meeting will take place on Tuesday, April 9, at 10:30 a.m. at the Shelburne Community Centre.
