NDP would invest in health care to ensure Cape Bretoners get the care they need

Whitney Pier – Today, NDP Leader Gary Burrill spoke to Pamela Murdoch about how Iain Rankin and the Liberals are leaving people behind and forcing them to wait longer for basic health care.

“Time and again Iain Rankin and the Liberals have abandoned Cape Bretoners when it comes to health care,” said Burrill. “Liberals took away local decision making and centralized it in Halifax, shut down community hospitals, did nothing while doctors left, and have failed to address ER overcrowding and ambulance delays. People in Cape Breton are fed up with Liberal election promises and no action.”

Cape Breton hospitals have some of the highest death rates in the country and emergency room closures have gone up every year under the Liberals. There are thousands of people in Cape Breton who don’t have a family doctor forcing them to get care from walk-in clinics or deal with long waits in emergency rooms.

“I have had two doctors in the last six years, each of them left or retired leaving me to sit on the family doctor waitlist,” said Murdoch. “I have a chronic health condition and need prescriptions for my medicines. My last doctor gave me a prescription for a year’s worth of medicine. After a year I still don't have a family doctor, and I will have to go to walk-in clinics or sit in the emergency room to get my prescriptions refilled.”

For eight years, the Liberals have paid lip service to the people of Cape Breton. For eight years, Liberals have refused to acknowledge there is a crisis in health care.

“The people in Cape Breton were promised an expanded Collaborative Emergency Centre and the Liberals didn’t deliver. Instead, Iain Rankin and the Liberals are closing community hospitals and taking services in New Waterford and North Sydney away, making things much harder for people like Pamela,” said Burrill. “It’s time to make sure Iain Rankin and the Liberals learn that this is unacceptable. Cape Bretoners won’t accept another four years of Liberal broken promises. This election, vote NDP and help elect more NDP MLAs so we can deliver the health care people need.”

An NDP government will increase mental health funding, open two new same-day/next-day mental health clinics, build a long-term care bed for every person who needs one, staff nursing homes adequately, and establish a mobile mental health crisis response team in Cape Breton.

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