New lung clinic to tackle Nova Scotia’s long waiting lists for breathing tests

A new lung clinic opening in Halifax in late November is hoping to tackle long waiting lists for breathing tests, while also aiming to act as a recruitment tool to fill respiratory therapy vacancies in Nova Scotia.

The Nova Scotia Lung Wellness Clinic has been operating for more than two years. It was a proposed solution to a growing problem during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people in some parts of the province faced four-year waits for a five-minute spirometry test.

“When I tell my colleagues elsewhere in the world how long people here wait for a breath test, it’s a shame because we know we can do better and it’s a problem that has a simple solution,” said Sanja Stanojević, associate professor in Dalhousie University’s department of community health and epidemiology.

Stanojević is part of the team that came up with the solution to build the clinic.

When it opens, respiratory therapy students at Dalhousie will take the test under the supervision of preceptors provided by Nova Scotia Health.

This will give them on-the-job training, which is a requirement for their program, as well as deal with long waiting lists.

Spirometry tests are important in diagnosing pulmonary conditions such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). It’s estimated that 13 per cent of Nova Scotians have COPD, but Stanojevic says that without testing, it’s often misdiagnosed.

Making someone wait for a spirometry test is like making a diabetic wait years for a diagnostic blood test, he said.

“What this means is if a doctor guesses that someone has COPD, they may be put on treatments that are not working for them,” he explained.

“They may be placed on treatments that have side effects and unintended consequences. By providing accurate diagnostic testing, we are able to get the correct diagnosis for an individual in a timely manner.”

The clinic is a partnership between the Lung Association of NS and PEI, Nova Scotia Health and the provincial health department, but is being funded by biopharma company GSK Canada.

It gave Dalhousie $300,000 to test the clinic as an 18-month pilot program.

In a statement, the Department of Health and Wellness said the project “demonstrates how our health-care system, community and industry can work together to find solutions to better support Nova Scotians.”

Katherine Gunn, director of the School of Health Sciences at Dalhousie, is overseeing the clinic’s education department.

“We’ll be removing a few hundred patients from the list every month,” he said.

This will not only help reduce wait times, Gunn said, but will also help alleviate staffing shortages.

Nova Scotia Health says it currently has 37 full-time vacancies for respiratory therapists — about 20 per cent of its staffing needs, and that doesn’t include vacancies at IWKs, long-term care facilities or private clinics.

Dalhousie doubled enrollment in its respiratory therapy program to meet the need two years ago, accepting 24 students per year, but then it faced another problem: finding work placements for students.

Many people had to move out of the province to gain job experience, but this left the door open for them to be recruited in other provinces.

Gunn said the clinic allows students studying in Nova Scotia to receive training in the province, creating a greater chance for them to stay permanently.

“It provides care at a slightly slower pace. It’s a safe place to learn and it allows them to have access to the same patients they see in the hospital, but in a different environment.”

Gunn said the clinic is in the process of contacting people who have been on the waiting list the longest, including people in the Western Region, to see if they are willing to travel to Halifax for testing.

Once they work through the backlog, she hopes to allow referrals from primary care providers, eventually allowing self-referrals from patients who don’t have a provider.

“We knew we were doing something that was innovative and great,” he said of the clinic’s plans. “It’s exciting to do something new.”

more top stories