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"When I say 'this team will fix the healthcare crisis,' I mean it." 

Tim Houston, August 17, 2021

(Election Day)

"Yeah. Fix is a very subjective word."

Tim Houston, April 22, 2022,

"...we were also clear that it would probably get worse before it gets better."

Tim Houston, June 16, 2022

For certain, Tim Houston nailed the last one. Things have gotten worse.  

Things have gotten much worse.    

One of Houston's first acts in making things worse was to fire the physician CEO and 14 volunteer-members of the board of directors of Nova Scotia Health and replace them with long-time PC party faithful, Karen Oldfield, a lawyer with zero healthcare experience as "interim" CEO. Firing the doctor CEO cost Nova Scotians $400,000. That’s approximately one year’s salary for 1.5 physicians or five nurses.

More than a year later Oldfield is still “interim” CEO. In an interview with the CBC, Oldfield stated that "while she may not have a health-care background, she came into her job with the experience of caring for a husband who requires regular trips to the hospital for dialysis and other treatments." 

How the reporter kept a straight face is a mystery. Saying you're qualified to run the provincial healthcare system because you've helped someone else use it is like saying you know how to run a restaurant because you've taken your kids to Wendy's a bunch of times. 

I donated a kidney to one sibling and held medical power of attorney for another. I, too, have spent endless hours in hospital, but in terms of work experience, that doesn't make me qualified to be a receptionist in a doctor's office, let alone a senior healthcare official.

Oldfield said, "I have lived this system for a long time. I know the technology problems.

"I know when the parking [garage] arm doesn't go up. I know when the parking lot hasn't been plowed … I want nothing more than to get some of this stuff fixed."

Respectfully, Karen, there are bigger problems afoot here than hospital parking lots. You are one of them. You didn’t get to be CEO because of your prowess in healthcare administration obtained by osmosis, you are there precisely because you’re not a physician and you’ll do exactly what you’re told. 

That said, Oldfield is just a spy in the ointment. The biggest problem is that there’s not nearly enough ointment. In June 2021, 66,404 Nova Scotians needed a doctor. Today, 116,000 Nova Scotians need one. That’s one-in-10 Nova Scotians who are either clogging up our ERs, lurking like scavengers outside our remaining walk-in clinics trying to beat the daily cutoff, or forgoing care all together. 

One thing that the majority of Nova Scotians without doctors aren't doing is using VirtualCareNS that was touted as an interim solution. With 150-200 virtual appointments a day–a maximum of 1,000 appointments a week–and a patient pool of 116,000, the odds of getting an appointment are slimmer than getting tickets to see Shania Twain. 

Having repeatedly tried to book a virtual care appointment without success, I emailed VirtualCareNS this morning to ask what time of day appointments are made available. The only response I received was an auto-reply with a list of frequently asked questions, none of which explained when those 150-200 appointments are tossed to the physicianless masses every day. 

The email did tell me to plan ahead and book in advance so my prescriptions don't run out. My wonderful former doctor, who closed her practice this July, prescribed me a year's worth of refills. Perhaps by the time those run out, I might be able to secure myself a virtual appointment. I will be long overdue for my yearly lady-parts examination by then. Maybe I should get one of those phones that folds in half for a more comfortable fit in case that appointment is conducted virtually too. 

Update! VirtualCareNS email me back and it's absolute nonsense.

Killer job, Houston. Literally.

Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston
Photo credit: Government of Nova Scotia

On Wednesday, Premier Tim Houston and Chief Medical Officer Robert Strang held what Houston proposed may be the last COVID-19 press conference. 

Houston tone was upbeat as he announced the upcoming removal of all public health measures. The positive delivery was helped in no small measure by the failure of Houston or Strang to acknowledge the 25 Nova Scotians who have died of covid since the last press conference two weeks ago. 

Houston said there comes a point where the impact of restrictions outweigh the benefits. Presumably, by benefits he means the continued support of the people who voted for his government in with the expectation of lifted restrictions. It seems of little public health benefit to promise to eliminate the very simple protective measure of masking when we we still have a positivity rate above 10 per cent, and especially to do so before seeing what happens after we increase capacity limits on March 7th.

Houston says the pace at which we are moving is right for our situation and our province. Coincidentally, it's also exactly what conservative premiers in other provinces are doing to placate their voter bases, even though hospitals across the country are still full of covid-infected patients and death counts rise daily. 

It begs the parental question, if Kenney, Moe, Higgs, and Ford jumped off a bridge, would Houston cannonball after them?  

Yesterday, still angry with public health measures being replaced with that ol' conservative blame shifter "personal responsibility," I downloaded the covid data from the Health Canada website. I wanted to compare covid outcomes under the previous Liberal governments to this Conservative one. 

The results are a cautionary tale.

As a start date, I used the date of the first confirmed covid case, March 18, 2020. As and end date, the last day of available, February 23, 2022. For implementation of vaccines, I used December 15, 2020, the day the first shipment arrived in Nova Scotia. For the change in governments, I used the date the Houston cabinet was installed, August 31, 2021. 

Days in office
Liberals: 531
Conservatives: 176

Days without vaccines
Liberals: 271
Conservatives: 0

Total covid deaths
Liberals: 94
Conservatives: 97

Total covid cases
Liberals: 6,030
Conservatives: 38,521*

Cases per day
Liberals: 11.3
Conservatives: 218.9

Deaths per day
Liberals: 0.18
Conservatives: 0.55

Highest deaths day
Liberals: 6
Conservatives: 9

Highest cases day
Liberals: 227
Conservatives: 1184

Tests performed on highest cases day
Liberals:  7744
Conservatives: 5803

Positivity rate of highest day
Liberals: 2.9%
Conservatives: 20.4%

The Liberal governments began the pandemic with the same ignorance of SARS-CoV-2 as the rest of the planet and were without vaccines for the majority of their time in office. Despite this, their Covid response was one of the best in the western world. The Conservatives, who had access to an extensive body of knowledge of the virus and were handed a highly vaccinated population, has had 19 times as many infections* and three times as many deaths.

The poor pandemic management of the Houston government is no outlier. It is reflective of conservative provincial governments across the country. Notably, the more populist the conservative government, the greater the number of infections and deaths. Demonstrated provincially by highest rate of infection per capita by Kenney #1, Moe #2, and Pallister/Stefanson #3.

The cautionary tale is this: vote for a government that cares whether you live or die. The life you save may be your own.

*The number of Covid infections during the fifth wave is significantly underreported as only positive PCR tests were counted—positive rapid test were not—and PCR testing was limited compared to previous waves. While not counted, rapid test availability was also limited during the fifth wave.

Do your job, journalists

It was with mounting frustration that I read the Chronicle Herald article 563 lawyers warn that COVID-19 mandates, protocols violate charter rights. In part, I was frustrated in part because I had just finished reading Nova Scotia’s health-care system in ‘dire straits’. A story of doctors and nurses pushed to the breaking point by COVID-19 and, in some cases, beyond, with nurses quitting in droves last fall and fears that the omicron wave may restart the exodus.

The surgeon interviewed said “we’re talking patients with orthopedic issues, and spine issues who are in debilitating pain, who can’t go to work, who can’t live a functional life, whose mental health is being affected by the fact that they can’t have their surgery.” 

Heart attack patients are being treated in hallways and, at times, up to 20 ambulances are waiting outside the hospital for offloading. Staffing shortages so dire, consideration is being given to allowing COVID-19 positive healthcare workers in the workplace.

“'Provincial authorities have said ‘that, quote, ‘work isolation is the last resort.’ But what does ‘the last resort’ mean?’ the surgeon asked. ‘I feel like we are at that last resort now, because we can barely provide basic medical care.’”

Mostly though, I was frustrated because the reporter who wrote the 563-lawyer article confused journalist with transcriptionist. Journalism is about finding things out. A quote attributed to journalism professor Jonathan Foster says: “If someone says it’s raining and another person says it’s dry, it’s not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the [expletive] window and find out which is true.” 

A more elegant and old, but analogous quote from French philosopher, art critic, and writer Denis Diderot is: “All things must be examined, debated, investigated without exception and without regard for anyone's feelings.” 

We all know the hospital story is true. Each and every one of us is a part of the healthcare system, as a worker, or a patient, or as their friend or family. It is not a matter of if we will use the healthcare system, it is a matter of when we will use the healthcare system.

Just so, we will all need a lawyer at some point too. Let’s take a look at the lawyer article. Evidently there is a “chorus of lawyers, business people, and private citizens”, otherwise known as some people, who are unhappy with COVID-19 mandates. Of them, 683 live in Nova Scotia and wrote a letter to Minister Lohr calling for an end to the mandates. The article does not consider the remaining 999,317 people who live here that did not sign that letter. 

At this point, we enter the ivory tower. Bruce Wildsmith, constitutional law expert, said “my humble opinion is that Justin Trudeau’s father, as the father of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, would be rolling over in his grave.” We don't know if Wildsmith is speaking from first-hand knowledge of Pierre Trudeau, because the reporter doesn't ask him. Though I suspect that  the son of the man who invoked the War Measures Act and famously said “Just watch me” knows more than Wildsmith about what his father would do in response to a pandemic that has sickened millions and killed tens of thousands of Canadians. I would also wager that the number of Nova Scotians who would prefer a roadblock on the 104 over the unencumbered passage of goods and people has a similar ratio to Lohr’s letter.

Moving on to the True North Declaration, this is where the wheels of journalism come entirely off the bus. The declaration, which was quoted in part and unquestioned in its entirety, is littered with falsehoods and right-wing talking points. The source document may well have been a Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan podcast, but who knows? None of this was ever questioned by the reporter. According to the article, 563 lawyers signed the declaration, but once you click the signatories’ button on the declaration page, you’ll see that number drop to 420 lawyers, 419 if you don’t count the one in Germany. There are over 126,400 lawyers in Canada. Nearly 126,000 of them didn’t sign this letter.

Turns out there’s more than one nutty professor in Ontario. When looking towards the credibility of a person making claims, being a law professor definitely lends credence. On the flip side, take a look at the law professor’s twitter feed. It’s a nonstop tweet-circus of Freedom Truckers, conspiracy theorist Theo Fleury, Ivermectin praise, and far-right discredited news sites. The declaration warns of a “mass hysteria”, which isn’t incorrect, but it’s not as described in the declaration. It’s a mass hysteria of a privileged class of mostly white men who have been minorly inconvenienced throughout the pandemic who think that screaming “my charter rights” and "eliminate mandates" will somehow bring about the before COVID times.

Which brings me to the last fellow in this article. Former Newfoundland premier Brian Peckford signed on to a lawsuit in Federal Court that seeks to end the vaccine mandate for air travel. The reporter was able to dig up that Peckford is the last living signatory of the Charter of Rights and Freedom, a recent Trucker Freedom Prof tweet. No acknowledgement of Peckford endorsing anti-multiculturalist, anti-environment, anti-mandate, and all around loon Peoples Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier for prime minister. It was right there on Peckford's Wikipedia page. There's a photo too. Anyone who cares about human rights and freedoms does not endorse an astrology-for-men libertarian who openly embraces white supremacists.

The pandemic has been hell, no question, but as the saying goes, when in hell, keep going. Nova Scotia’s COVID-19 response has been one of the best in Canada. It is a point of Bluenoser pride how well we’ve done. We’ve had a spike in new Nova Scotians who have moved here from other provinces during the pandemic, because of that response.

We are a resilient people. We will endure and we will see the end of this pandemic. We should not have to suffer through passive, information-silo reporting while we’re at it. It's a pandemic, not a thought exercise. Reporters, when you’re interviewing constitutional experts, real or alleged, who say they’re fighting for our freedom, dig in. Ask them what hardships they’ve personally endured throughout the pandemic. Have they been harassed and abused for enforcing mask mandates like teenage store clerks or did they have to wear a mask on the subway? Did their employer lie about a massive COVID-19 outbreak and knowingly put them in harm's way or were they unable to find three-ply toilet paper at the grocery store? Did they ride face down on a ventilator for a couple weeks or did they have to cancel a southern holiday? Did they say a final goodbye to a loved one via iPad or did they have to work from home and Zoom? Did they watch people die all week at work while antivaxxers raged at them through the windows or were they forced to celebrate their birthday at home with Skip the Dishes?

Above all else, ask them to defend their position. When someone says they want all restrictions lifted, ask them what their plan is to ensure all Canadians receive timely and equitable care when hospitals are overflowing with COVID-19 patients. How will they protect the elderly, the immune compromised, and the unvaccinated? What will they do to ensure that nurses and doctors don’t quit when the nonstop death and disease becomes unbearable? Make them say the hard parts out loud and write those words down, because that is the story. That is who they are and that is what people need to know to make informed decisions. That is your job. Do your job.