Nova Scotia slashes health care spending
CMAJ 2000;162:1722
Nova Scotians are learning to live with a new provincial budget that, while not as detrimental to their health as the government had intimated, is still a bitter pill to swallow. Overall, the health care budget has been cut by 4.7%, while hospitals like the Queen Elizabeth II Health Sciences Centre in Halifax will be taking a 5.5% hit. This is on top of a 3.2% reduction the hospital faced at the beginning of this year. "Our challenge will be to maintain safe, accessible and quality patient care when wait lists are already long and beds running at full capacity," says Bob Smith, the QE II's president and CEO.
Seniors are also finding it hard to balance their health care needs with their cheque books. User fees for Pharmacare, the provincial drug plan for seniors, have jumped 20% — an average increase of about $5 per prescription. As well, the annual copayment fee rose to $350 from $200. Home care costs have also risen $2 an hour, from $6 to $8. In addition, taking an ambulance now costs $85, as opposed to the previous fee of either $60 or $80. These new fees, along with others outlined in the budget, are expected to save the government about $12 million this fiscal year.
Nova Scotia, 1 of only 3 provinces without a balanced budget, is trying to rein in health care spending, which has risen by almost 38% in the last 3 years to its current level of $1.8 billion annually. As part of the reining-in process, 600 jobs are being eliminated. Health Minister Jamie Muir hopes that administrative positions will be the ones to go and that patient care will not be directly affected.
Although the cuts to health care may hurt, pumping more money into the ailing system is not the answer, says Finance Minister Neil LeBlanc. "If money alone were the answer to good health care, Nova Scotians would have the best health care in the country. Last year, Nova Scotia spent more per capita on public health care than any other province."
That is unlikely to be the case this year. — Donalee Moulton, Halifax
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