Tally of Nova Scotians waiting for family doctor dips to 145K

The Nova Scotia government says the number of people seeking a family doctor has dipped from an all-time high and now sits at around 145,000. 

On Thursday morning, Nova Scotia Health said as of Oct. 4, there were 145,114 people on the need-a-family-practice registry — down about 12 per cent since September. The latest figure is comparable to the number of people seeking a doctor in mid-2023.

Karen Oldfield, interim president and CEO of Nova Scotia Health, said in a news release she was "cautiously optimistic" that the registry was stabilizing and that more people on the waitlist would be attached to doctors. 

She said last month 11,501 people were paired up with physicians and primary care providers, the highest total matched in a month since the beginning of the registry. 

Premier Tim Houston said he was "most excited" about those attachments, which he said could be attributed to several factors. 

"That's the result of working with primary care providers and how we can better support them to increase capacity in their clinics. We're seeing that — they're able to take on some more patients," he said, adding there are also more doctors and health-care professionals in the province. 

The province stopped releasing monthly updates on the registry over this summer. Oldfield said in September that it wasn't being updated publicly because the health authority was verifying who was on it, and changing the way it functions.

This resulted in staff removing nearly 8,000 names last month. 

But numbers released Thursday show the overall list continued to grow behind the scenes, reaching a high of 164,489 people in September, before the total fell in October.

It was the first public update since June when about 160,000 people — or 16.2 per cent of the province's population — were on the list. 

Officials did similar work to verify the list last year and removed about 17,500 names in the summer of 2023. 

Nova Scotia Health said people who sign up to the registry should expect calls to verify they are still looking for care.

When the Tories were elected in 2021, there were half as many people on the registry. 

"In the face of inaction, it would be worse than it is now," said Houston. 

"We were always very clear that it would take time to stabilize the system and see improvements. It definitely has taken time."

Opposition skeptical about progress

Both opposition leaders were critical of the premier's take. 

Liberal Leader Zach Churchill said the size of the registry still shows a "worsening crisis in the health-care system."

NDP Leader Claudia Chender said she was taking the new figures with a grain of salt and disappointed the premier didn't commit to publishing the registry numbers each month.

A spokesperson for Nova Scotia Health said 512 people were removed from the list because they moved out of the province, while 26 people were removed because they were found to have died. There were 7,265 names removed from the list because they were confirmed to already have attachment to primary care, while 71 people were removed at their request for personal reasons.