As emergency departments remain closed, minister promises to continue community consultation

Nova Scotia’s health minister says public meetings will continue in communities with a pattern of closing emergency departments, despite his government repealing legislation last year that included a requirement for the meetings.

“I’m confident in it,” Michelle Thompson said in an interview Wednesday.

“I think it’s part of the mandate of the work that Nova Scotia Health does.”

Legislation passed by the Progressive Conservatives last year eliminated the Emergency Department Accountability Act. Among other things, the law mandated an annual report showing the total number of hours each emergency department in the province was closed.

But community meetings were also required, and details about those sessions were included in annual reports. A spokesperson for the health authority said in a statement that officials are continuing to hold meetings across the province to provide updates on health care and that those meetings “may include emergency department closures if applicable.”

“We are increasingly connecting with existing events/opportunities to help share our information and build community partnerships, for example having booths at farmers markets in Digby and Shelburne and sending health ambassadors to summer programs,” Keith Corcoran said in the statement.

With the government phasing out reports, CBC tracked unscheduled emergency department closures for 2025 using Nova Scotia Health’s public notices.

Communities that have struggled with closures for years, including Digby and Shelburne, face those challenges in 2025, too. Some communities, such as Lunenburg, saw a decrease in unscheduled closures, while the number of closures increased in Port Hawkesbury and Windsor.

Both Digby General Hospital and Roseway Hospital emergency departments in Shelburne were closed for more than 4,800 hours in 2025. The emergency department of Strait Richmond Hospital was closed for more than 3,000 hours.

Hants Community Hospital in Windsor was closed for nearly 1,000 hours in 2025, while Fishermen’s Memorial Hospital in Lunenburg had unscheduled closures for nearly 870 hours.

The reports the government produced covered one fiscal year, while the data compiled by the CBC was for one calendar year.

As the government seeks to add health care workers to these and other communities, it has expanded the availability of virtual services even at a time when emergency departments are closed. Virtual urgent care is now at several sites, allowing patients to talk to a provider located in another location, and a same-day clinic has been added in Roseway on weekends.

Different levels of detail

When Thompson introduced the legislation last year, he said the report was no longer needed in part because the information was outdated by the time it was published — the report would come out each December for fiscal years that had closed 10 months earlier.

Thompson also pointed to the availability of information on the Action for Health public reporting website, which tracks a variety of health care system metrics.

But examination of that website and other online resources shows that there is less information now available to the public than is included in the report and that it is no longer possible to produce annual averages without almost daily tracking.

For example, the average wait time by emergency department is now only available in real time. Information about the number of people attending emergency departments is no longer broken down by age and specific site.

Meanwhile, information on the government’s open data website is either out of date or no longer available on topics such as closing times, the level of urgency of patient visits and how many people go without being seen.

The minister said his department, Nova Scotia Health and the IWK Health Center have multiple datasets they use to help make decisions. Although he doesn’t think there is a “huge request” for that information, Thompson said it could be provided if people wanted.

“And we’re always looking for ways we can take the information we have, make it digestible (and) help tell the story about what’s really happening so people trust the system.”

Thompson said the most important thing for patients when they need help is real-time data so they know what’s happening at the site where they want to receive treatment.

But NDP health critic Rod Wilson said even this information may not be reliable.

Wilson, a doctor by training which continues to provide coverage in emergency departments When his schedule allows for it, he said he is working on sites when the average wait time posted online does not reflect what is actually happening on the site.

He also said it is important to continue holding community meetings every year where closures remain in place.

“If your emerge is closed and your constituents don’t know when your emerge will open or whether it will remain open, there needs to be some accountability at the legislative level and also from (Premier) Tim Houston,” Wilson said in an interview.

Interim Liberal leader Iain Rankin said it was difficult to see how the public would be better served in the absence of an annual accountability report.

Rankin said collecting data and making it public allows people to track the progress of efforts to reform the health care system.

“I think most people understand that what gets measured gets done.”

more top stories