Everyday tasks are not easy for Wanda Tingly. Up until 2021, she was a junior high school teacher. In April of that year, Tingley’s life was turned upside down by two automobile accidents. “I had two surgeries because I had cancer and then I got hit in 2021 by two cars 11 days apart,” she says. Tingley suffered a traumatic brain injury and damage to her eyes, shoulders, and feet. Living alone in Lantz, N.S., roughly 45 minutes outside of Halifax, getting to her multiple medical and physiotherapy appointments proved to difficult and expensive. But a pilot program that was one of the recommendations of the Mass Casualty Commission to provide free rides to people needing health care in northern areas of the province was a big help. That program has been quietly cut by the province. Tingley found out about it on Facebook. “I see it going downhill because, I cried, I’m angry at the government. I will have no help so I will just slip from any progress I made, I assume I will, a slip or a plateau because I can’t get in there, I can’t get help.” A statement to CTV News from Nova Scotia Health reads in part: “Between exhausting federal funds, and the complexities of rural, non-medical transportation, the program quickly became unsustainable.” Elizabeth Smith-McCrossin is the independent MLA for Cumberland North. She says the province is giving up too easily. “It’s not the responsible way to provide government services for sure. This should be continued, and if it is because of federal funding, then do your job and work with our federal partners and get the funding extended,” Smith-McCrossin says. “What I don’t understand is why the recommendations of the Mass Casualty Commission that have been in place for less than three years are already being cancelled.” As for Tingley, she’s not sure what the future holds. “I did lose my life; this is not life. Six years, going to medical appointments and being here alone,” she says. Tingley still has appointments booked and she says she’ll wait as long as she can before cancelling them with the hope that the transportation program will continue. Nova Scotia Health’s Northern Zone Transportation Pilot will end on Dec. 1, 2026. For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page
