The better question is: What could Nova
Scotia become because of it?
S omewhere in Nova Scotia, right now, an adult child is trying to keep an aging parent safely at home. They are making phone calls. Waiting for assessments. Driving to appointments. Trying to understand medications. Trying to know whether a parent’s forgetfulness is normal aging, early dementia, or something more urgent. They are trying to work, raise children, pay bills, and hold a family together while quietly becoming part nurse, part advocate, part chauffeur, part system navigator. Somewhere else, a cancer patient is waiting for a specialist appointment and discovering that time itself can become a form of fear. Somewhere else, a rural family is leaving home before dawn to get to Halifax for care that does not exist closer to them. These stories are usually told as evidence of failure. They are also evidence of what Nova Scotia must become an expert in solving. There is a tired way to talk about healthcare in Nova Scotia, and it usually starts with panic. We do not have enough doctors. Emergency rooms close. People wait too long. Specialists are hard to reach. The population is aging. The system is strained. Everyone is angry. All of that may be true. But it is also incomplete. Because the real question is not simply: How do we survive the healthcare crisis? The better question is: What could Nova Scotia become because of it? That sounds strange at first. Healthcare is usually discussed as a burden — a massive public expense, a political liability, a moral
PLANT THE FLAG How Nova Scotia Could Build a Healthcare Future around the Population We Actually Have
by Ben Brooks
154 SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE • VOL 26 ISSUE 3
HEALTH & WELLNESS • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS MAGAZINE 155
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