HALIFAX, N.S. - Every Nova Scotian will have access to a family doctor if the Liberal party is elected to govern the province on June 9, party leader Stephen McNeil promised Tuesday as he unveiled a $6-million plan to lure doctors to under-serviced areas.
McNeil said his government would cover the cost of tuition for 100 medical school students on the condition they agree to practise for five years in areas where physicians are badly needed.
"Those students will begin their careers with less debt and people will gain a family physician," he told a small crowd outside the Sir Charles Tupper Medical Building, part of the Dalhousie Medical School campus in Halifax.
"It is a win-win situation for the medical student and families."
He said the Liberals would provide tuition for 20 students every year for the next five years.
"A family doctor is a luxury in some parts of our province," he said. "There are simply not enough family doctors to supply the needs of families."
About 50,000 Nova Scotians do not have a doctor, he said. With so many people lacking access to basic, primary health care, emergency rooms have been overwhelmed in some communities, he added.
McNeil said his government would require participants to move to certain areas if none of them volunteered to work there.
"They have to go where we are sending them. ... That will be part of the contract," he said. "When they sign a contract with us, with my government, it will be that they are going to the community that we send them."
Dr. Don Wescott, president of Doctors Nova Scotia, offered qualified praise for the proposal.
"I see the effects of a lack of physicians and I'm glad to see the Liberals have recognized this," he said.
"(But) I'm not comfortable saying yes or no to this. ... I'd like to see what all the parties have to say before we're prepared to comment specifically."
Still, the obstetrician from Antigonish went on to say he was concerned by McNeil's suggestion that the government would require doctors to go to locations that may not be popular.
"That would be difficult to enforce," Wescott said in an interview. "We want to have physicians that are happy in their communities."
However, Wescott stressed that he wanted to see the details within the contracts that McNeil is proposing before commenting further.
"I would expect that a reasonable person signing an appropriate contract would honour that contract, but then there should not be a surprise in the contract."
McNeil said the expectation is that once a participating doctor is dispatched to an under-serviced area, they will be more likely to stay there once they put down roots in the community.
McNeil noted his party had earlier persuaded Premier Rodney MacDonald's Conservative government to pay for the tuition of 10 medical students who pledged to work in under-serviced areas.
"This is taking it to the next level," he said.
Wescott said he was eager to see how the parties would respond to some of the concerns raised by his group, the professional body that represents the province's 2,400 practising physicians
Wescott said Doctors Nova Scotia wants the government to draft a strategy to deal with obesity by promoting physical activity, and it also wants a commitment to bring electronic records management to physicians offices.
