'People are dying': Protestors demand health minister declare state of emergency

About two dozenpeople staged a protestoutside Health Minister Randy Delorey's office in downtown Halifax on Friday.

The protesters wanted the province to admit it's facing a health-care crisis as a first step towardfinding solutions.

They were inspired by many stories, including that of Inez Rudderham, a cancer patient whose emotional video has been seen more than four million times.

"One of the Liberals said to me the peoplebetter start taking care better care of themselves," saidLeslieTilly,an activist who gathered people through Facebook. "Well what does that mean."

Tilly believes people are stronger than the government."We can find an immediate solution to take some pressure off of the people and then we can work on our long-term solutions and get this rolling."

'People are dying and more people will die'

Tilly read a message to Delorey telling him to declare the health-care crisis a state of emergency."People are dying and more people will die, their blood will be on your hands."

Heidi Chartrand, a medical cannabis activist, helps patients get a medical cannabis licence and obtain access to products. Some of her patients have to travel to Ontario because none of them have a doctor in Nova Scotia.

"There is no reason why, with all of the government funding for the art galleries and the football stadiums that they're talking about, that anybody should have to wait a significant amount of time to see a specialist to get an MRI done or have surgery," said Chartrand.