NSNDP calls for accountability in health care decision-making

HALIFAX – On Monday morning, Official Opposition Leader Claudia Chender wrote to the Health Minister about two bills her party is introducing to give Nova Scotians non-partisan information on the decisions being made about the healthcare system, as well as progress reports about what’s working.

“When this government was elected in 2021 on a promise to fix healthcare, one of their first actions was to remove members of the Nova Scotia Health (NSH) Board of Governance – a change that was made possible by legislation from the former Liberal government,” said Chender. “The Houston government then replaced 13 qualified people with a board administrator who was working from Ontario and a hand-picked interim CEO who had no healthcare experience and deep ties to the Progressive Conservative Party. Naturally, this raised serious concerns.

“People don’t want decisions that impact their health being made in secret by political insiders; they want real results: shorter wait times, emergency rooms that stay open, and access where and when they need it most.”

Under Karen Oldfield’s leadership, NSH awarded over $3.7 billion in contracts through alternative procurement, with almost $3 billion in 2025 alone.

In one year under the Houston government, only 1 per cent of goods and services procured by Nova Scotia Health went through a competitive process. We will never know if taxpayers got the best value out of the money that was spent.

“Billions of dollars have been spent without oversight and Nova Scotians are still struggling to access health care when they need it, waiting hours in ERs, months to see a doctor, and years to see a specialist,” said Chender. “Nova Scotians deserve to know how their money is being spent. They need to be able to trust that their healthcare needs are the focus, not the political desires of the government of the day.”

The NSNDP are tabling two pieces of legislation aimed to address Nova Scotians’ accountability concerns. The first, the Healthcare Accountability Act, would require the Minister to reappoint a full 13-member governance board, and if a health board were dismissed in the future, a new board would need to be appointed within one year. ​The second, The Action Plan on Access to Emergency Care Act, would require the Minister to hold public meetings in each of the province’s healthcare zones, release an Action Plan to improve Nova Scotians’ access to emergency care, and publish annual progress reports on what the government is doing to improve access to emergency care on an on-going basis.

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