Debate grows over how Nova Scotia counts family doctor attachments

Nova Scotia’s new method for tracking the family doctor waitlist is missing the mark for residents and opposition.

Health officials in Nova Scotia say their hard work attaching Nova Scotians to primary care is paying off.

As of April 1, around six per cent of Nova Scotians – or nearly 62,000 people – remain on the Need A Family Practice registry.

That’s down from around nine per cent last year.

Nova Scotia’s Executive Deputy Minister of Health and Wellness Dana MacKenzie says the waitlist has evolved and a deeper analysis and scrutiny of the numbers is underway.

“In 2021 there really wasn’t a methodology,” said MacKenzie. “There was a spreadsheet with peoples names on it.”

But opposition parties argue the new methodology changes what “attached” means.

The disagreement centres around patients previously identified as “pending.” They are now considered attached, even when they may not have had an appointment with the doctor or health-care team.

“They’ve changed the goalposts entirely,” said interim Liberal Leader Iain Rankin. “They’ve created a waiting room, essentially, for Nova Scotians, and they aren’t able to say how many people are sitting in that waiting room.”

The NDP agrees and raised similar concerns around patients who have been assigned to a primary health-care clinic that had yet open it doors.

Halifax Citadel-Sable Island MLA Lisa Lachance said they’ve heard from constituents who were attached to a health-care clinic that had yet to fully open.

“Folks were being attached months ahead of time, before the building was complete and recruitment was complete as far as I understand,” said Lachance. “And so they were confused.”

Health officials disagree, saying attachment doesn’t mean a first appointment has happened. They say it’s when a patient has been assigned a health-care provider.

“It’s when they have been given a health home and an assigned location, and that particular practice has been informed they are being added to their actual list,” said MacKenzie. “I think that’s a pretty accurate way to talk about being attached.”

The next update to the patient registry is expected in early May.

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