Liberal MLA challenges rosy picture of emergency care painted by health officials

Health officials who provided a legislature committee with a lengthy list of changes they claim are improving emergency care across Nova Scotia got an earful from a Liberal MLA on Wednesday.

Kelly Regan told the six-person panel that appeared before the legislature's public accounts committee that the care her adult daughter received this spring taught the Bedford representative a valuable lesson.

"The takeaway that I have is: don't get sick on a Friday," said Regan. "Don't get seriously ill on a Friday because you're going to sit there and wait for someone to perform surgery."

Regan's warning stood in stark contrast to the often rosy picture painted by officials from the Department of Health, Nova Scotia Health and Emergency Medical Care, who, for almost 90 minutes, tried to assure the all-party committee that measures put in place by the Houston government are improving emergency care.

Those changes include the addition of licensed practical nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants to focus on rapid assessments and to handle patient transfers from paramedics.

The province has also hired 100 waiting room care providers and patient advocates to help monitor or provide help to patients in 13 emergency department waiting rooms across the province.

'My child was extremely ill'

Regan said the three times her daughter was rushed to hospital — the IWK Health Centre for an emergency C-section in November 2023, the Dartmouth General Hospital three weeks later for an emergency appendectomy, and gallbladder removal at the Halifax Infirmary in April after visits to two different emergency departments  — she got no help during her lengthy ER waits.

Regan said she has heard similar stories from constituents who have needed care.

"I was in emergency repeatedly this past year with an adult child who was very ill," Regan told the committee. "At no time did anyone ever identify themselves as a waiting room care provider or patient advocate. My child was extremely ill."

"The surgical resident said, quite frankly, if she had been older or in less good shape, she would have died from what she had," Regan continued. "And she would sit there for hours."

Regan said her daughter had to wait three and a half days to get a stent to relieve her pain prior to gallbladder surgery because there was no operating staff available on the weekend to do the procedure, prompting the politician's warning against getting sick on a Friday.

Deputy health minister Dana MacKenzie used her closing remarks to the committee to speak directly to Regan.

"When I opened my remarks, I talked about putting patients at the centre of everything," said MacKenzie.

"Any negative experience is really hard, and we regret and are sorry for those types of experiences, and are committed to and open to talking to you more about it so we can understand the experience and learn from it."

Challenges in health care

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Regan said she did not intend to recount her personal experiences during the meeting, but felt it necessary to counter what she heard from officials.

"As I sat there in the committee, I began to get angry," said Regan. "I was listening to people brag ... and just not admitting that there are still really big challenges in our health-care system."