PCs push incentives, NDP looks to union report to fix health-care woes

Progressive Conservative Leader JamieBailliesays the shortage of family physicianshas become a crisis in Nova Scotiaand he thinks the answer is more money.

On Wednesday, Baillie promised to double the amount of tuition relief available to medical school graduates, immediately hire42 family doctors and make it easier for Nova Scotians who train abroad to come home to practise.

"Our approach is to incent doctors through tuition relief and through additional payments to get them into rural areas," he said."I see that as using proper incentives to get doctors where they are needed most."

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Baillie supportsthe expansion of community health clinics promised by the Liberals, butsaid immediate action is needed to recruit doctors to areas of the province where they are needed most.

The Tory plan includes offering up to $120,000 in tuition relief to 25 additional medical school graduates, as long as they agree to practise in under-serviced areas.Currently, 25 students are benefiting from that program.

NDP plan for ER overcrowding

NDP Leader Gary Burrill promisedMonday to hire the doctors, nurses and other health professionals needed to staff dozens of new clinics across the province over four years. The party expects it will cost $120 million.

On Wednesday, he told reporters outside the Dartmouth General Hospitalthat Nova Scotians couldtrust his party to deliver on its health-care promises.

"The New Democratic Party is the party of health care," he said.

Burrill's focus was on ER overcrowding. His solution is toadoptthe 15 recommendations outlinedin a Nova Scotia Government andGeneral Employees Union report called Code Critical.

BurrillpraisesNDP actions under Darrell Dexter

He said one recommendation an NDP government would bring in immediately is anautomatic casereview whenever apatient has been on an inpatient floor for more than four months while waiting for a nursing home placement. The objective would then be to have that patient placed in an appropriate facility within 30 days.

Burrillblamed the current Liberal government for not doing enough to break a logjam of patients waiting to get into seniors' homes.

"When we were in office, [the NDP created]1,000 nursing home beds. Inthe last 3 years, zero," he said.

"At the same time, we are in the situation of overcrowding because we have so many people that can't access primary care anywhere else. This also is from a lack of investment."

Burrill said there's already existing money in the health budget to adoptthe recommendations put forward by the NSGEU.

Wiping the dust off a 2010 report

Burrillsaid his plans were in line with areport commissioned by the Darrell Dexter government that waspreparedin 2010byemergency room physician John Ross.

Ross recommended more collaborative care clinics be established as a solution to ER closures, but he also said some existing emergencyrooms should close.

Burrillsidestepped the question of whether some existing ERs should be closed or their hours of operation restricted, especially overnight.