Federal & Provincial Benchmarks
Each year, the Nova Scotia Department of Health allocates funding in areas that reflects Nova Scotians’ health care needs and priorities.
We spend approximately $2.5 billion, or 46 per cent of the provincial budget, on the delivery of quality health care to Nova Scotians.
The Department of Health works closely with the province’s nine district health authorities, IWK Health Centre, and other health partners to improve health care services and identify, address, and reduce wait times throughout the health system.
Some examples of strategies underway to improve wait times in Nova Scotia:
- February: A new linear accelerator opened at Capital Health and is improving access as more cancer patients being treated
- March: $800,000 was announced to construct a new Operating Room in Amherst
- April: $2 million mental health wait time money was announced for children and youth - this has already helped reduce wait times at the IWK in with funding for a new family unit
- Funding for four new Nurse Practitioners in the budget to improve access to community care
- Sixty additional nurses are being trained this year and next (120) at St. F.X and the University of Cape Breton College to allow LPNs to become nurses more quickly.
- Eight new medical school positions are being funded at Dalhousie University at a cost of $450,000 annually in increase supply of physicians. This is the third consecutive year.
- July: $800,000 announced for new digital diagnostic imaging equipment called Picture Archiving Communication System (PACS) at the Guysborough Antigonish Strait Health Authority to replace film and allow area physicians and their patients to make faster and better treatment decisions.
- August: Health-care services expand with the establishment of a new primary health care clinic at the Yarmouth Regional Hospital. Up to three medical graduates will work at the clinic.
- November: MRIs purchased and rollout to have them installed underway.
First ever common benchmarks will allow Canadians to measure progress in reducing wait times (Federal press release - December 12, 2005)
Benchmarks for Health Services (Provincial Press Release - December 12, 2005)
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