a female physician sits infront of a laptop
May 12, 2023

Retired Nova Scotian finds herself without a family doctor

CTV News Atlantic

In her retirement, Valerie Vaughan-Hines enjoys bird-watching from her porch and looking for a pair of bald eagles that have nested across the lake from her home in Mount Uniacke, N.S. But lately, the 65-year-old has been spending a lot more time than she wants to looking for a family doctor.

image of three health care professionals. one female and two males
May 2, 2023

Primary care access

CTV National Your Morning

Skip to 1:10:48

a physician sits across from a patient at a table
April 1, 2023

N.S. patient says paying fees to obtain medical records after her doctor retires feels 'like a ransom'

CBC News Nova Scotia

It's bad enough to learn you're losing your family doctor, says one Nova Scotia woman, but being asked to pay hundreds of dollars to access years of medical records adds insult to injury. "We have already enough distress right now knowing that we're losing our family doctor," says Cornelia Schneider. "So on top of that, [to] have to pay … is really upsetting." Schneider learned her physician was closing her practice in the north end of Halifax in a letter earlier this month.

Dr. Leisha Hawker, President, Doctors Nova Scotia
March 30, 2023

I'm a family doctor in Halifax. Here's why pay-for-service clinics will burden the public system.

Macleans

I’ve worked as a family doctor in Nova Scotia’s public health sector for a decade. These days, I’m at a collaborative health centre in Halifax that offers primary care, dental care, mental-health support and other services. I’ve been watching our provincial system inch closer and closer to collapse since I became a physician back in 2013. It’s a story that’s now common to most other provinces, but Nova Scotia has its own specific problems: 14 per cent of the people who live here have no family doctor and, worse, a quarter of our working physicians are older than 60.