Nova Scotia doctor wait-list hits record high, topping 81,000

An undesirable record was set this month, again, on Nova Scotia's wait-list for a family doctor or nurse practitioner.

As of Nov. 1, more than 81,000 people were on the list, up by more than 60 per cent from the same time last year.

The figure has been rising steadily since last summer, with several thousand people joining each month. Names come off the list each month, too, but at a much slower rate.

In October, 5,262 people added their names to the registry, while 2,334 names dropped off.

Premier Tim Houston told reporters Thursday he is "of course" concerned by the size of the wait-list for primary care, but is confident his government's plans to improve access to care will pay off, eventually.

"I'd also remind people that we've always been very clear that things were probably going to get worse before they got better," said Houston.

"We know the issues in the health-care system. We're concerned about it but we're focused on it."

Houston's PC government won a majority in the summer election on a platform largely focused on health care. He has since opened a new office dedicated to the recruitment of health-care workers to fill major gaps across the system.

A spokesperson for the provincial health authority said as of last week, between Nova Scotia Health and the IWK Health Centre, the province was looking for about 85 new family doctors and 25 nurse practitioners.

Matthew Murphy, who monitors and analyzes the wait-list data for the health authority, said the numbers typically increase for three reasons.

The two main drivers are in-migration to the province, and physician retirements or relocations. Together those two factors accounted for about 90 per cent of the growth in October. The remaining 10 per cent of people who joined the wait-list said they hadn't needed a health-care provider until now.

Murphy said the share of people joining because they didn't previously need a provider ticked up slightly last month. He's exploring the possibility that the province's new virtual health-care program is the cause.

So far, the program has been offered to about 30,000 people on the wait-list in the northern and western health zones and is expected to roll out to the rest of the people on the list by the end of this year. The offering is to connect those people with a virtual care provider for as long as they're on the wait-list.

"We have a hypothesis that people may not have added their names if they felt that it could be a year or two before they got a provider," Murphy said.