Rural Nova Scotians team up to tackle 'crisis' in health care

A group of rural Nova Scotians is banding together to tackle the "crisis" in health care troubling parts of the province.

Karen Mattatall is mayor of Shelburne and chairs the Rural Nova Scotia Health Care Crisis Working Group. The group comprises people representing 11 municipalitiesfrom Mahone Bay around to Digby. Members of the public have also taken part and the Nova Scotia Health Coalition is working with them.

• The Search: CBC investigates health care in Nova Scotia

It grew out of fall protests over what they call the"excessive" closures of the Shelburneemergency room.

"Rural Nova Scotia is suffering greatly from lack of access to services, lack of family doctors," Mattatall told CBC News Thursday. "It seemed impossible to get the attention of the province, so we thought if we work together we could formulate some plans and maybe get them to listen to the concerns."

Lack of doctors forces long drives for help

Many Shelburne residents have no family doctors. The local Roseway Hospital emergency room was closed for three nights over the Easter long weekend. That forced people to travel to Yarmouth, Liverpool or Bridgewater, which puts more burden on those hospitals.

"You're putting ill people on the highway," Mattatallsaid. "When those things are happening in the wintertime, it certainly increases the opportunity of accidents."

The group produced a video series of people talking about accessing health care. "It's very heartbreaking to watch that. And I'm sure that is no different in many areas of rural Nova Scotia," Mattatall said.

The group meets next on April 16 at the Shelburne Community Centre. They'll draft a resolution to take to the Union of Nova Scotia Municipalities and plan a "day of action" at the legislature.

5-hour trip for 15-minute appointment

She hopes other areas of Nova Scotia form similar groups and they can co-ordinate their efforts.

Hazel Keddy knows the Roseway Hospital well: sixty-fiveyears ago, she was the first of her mother's eight children to be born in the hospital.

The Shelburne resident and her husband have struggled to keep a family doctor. They had one for a while, but the doctor left. After an 18-month wait, they got a new doctor. She left after two years. The next family doctor stayed only for a short contract.

Now, the Keddys have gone 22 months without a family doctor.

"If we need something even a prescription we have to go to [an] outpatients department," she said.

That means something as basic as getting a new prescription can take hours waiting to see a doctor.

Keddy needs to have a pap test done, which she says would take 15 minutes with a family doctor. "I am travelling all the way to Annapolis Royal," she said. "It's a five-hour return trip, but it needs to be done."

She said she got her first job at 16 and always paid her taxes. She knows she's legally entitled to better health care. "Sometimes you feel like a third-class citizen within your own community."