Letter to the Premier-Dan Mills

Subject: Nurse Practitioner: Digby Neck and Islands


Honorable Darrell Dexter,
Premier of Nova Scotia,
Provincial Legislature,
Halifax N.S.

Honorable and Dear Sir:

Some,- how many I am not sure-, have failed to meet the challenge of the day for the people on Digby Neck and Islands by failing to resolve compassionately and expeditiously the grave loss of a much loved Nurse Practitioner,MS.Karen Snider, who had chosen "to pitch her tent amongst us" and remain here.

This has gone on far too long without resolution.To leave a people in isolation for nearly two months without consistent and on-going health care is not only most unkind, but borders at least on the immoral and the criminal. It's bad enough that our local Hospital is being more and more diminished in ordinary services due tax-paying people, and leaving mainlanders often without comprehensive health care, but to leave people two ferry rides and another thirty plus minutes to Digby and then on to Annapolis Royal, and there to find out that its' out-patient department is closed too is hideous!

I well know that health care is costly, but it is a right nonetheless. I often think of the history of this province and conclude that others, as yourself in power, forget it. You know, Sir, that had it not been for the riches of the sea coupled with that from the mines and farms of the coastal regions of Nova Scotia over the course of centuries there would be no Nova Scotia as we know it today! Any government which fails to recognize and value that in 2009 is not worthy of holding office.

To not recognize this as a truth, and to fail now to serve the people in these regions which have in many ways been drained (the fishery to wit) of their last resource, is to forget the countless millions and billions of tax dollars which left these shores to build this province and this nation, and our rural neighborhoods.

Country people - and I was born one and plan to die one- do not demand a great deal. We expect not the amenities of the City nor the services so readily found there. We travel long distances to shop and get our necessary supplies. We don't mind that. That's the choice we made viz. to live in isolation and embrace a life style that suits our situation.

Many of us are seniors now and it appears that Governments and massive Institutions would have us move to large centers and abandon home, land, and sea so as to free up what's left of our home and space for the ultimate exploitation of anything which is left for the pickings. Here we've faced the ugliest prospects of geographical annihilation in the last few years with governments and business' choosing to impose without consultation, projects and enterprises without adequate and prior study and consensus with the people.That's no way to treat a people, our fellow human beings.

I thought the spirit of Tommy Douglas was alive and well in the New Democratic Party. Although I'd seen some signs in recent years that I could be wrong, I still believed your words and promises for proper services at our Out- Patient Departments across the Province. I'm an old man, Sir, and I've been two years or so without a family doctor. How stressful do you think it is,Sir, with no doctor to call my own,and what snub one feels when his Out-Patient Department is closed too much of the time? Hardly valued as a long-time paying taxpayer, that's for sure!

So back to the people on the Inslands with a winter lobster fishery just underway. What is Ms.Marueen MacDonald, and yourself so by extension, thinking? I've seen and read tales of "all due process is in place and has been followed." That's not very reassuring, Sir, to folks in Westport or Freeport/Tiverton who often meet injury at the whim and fancy of the storming sea in the middel of the night!

What are you thinking,Sir, when all that's offered are sporadic dates and hours - sometimes as little as an hour? The sea is cruel, illness strikes the young and elderly without appointment! Woe to he who misses an itinerant nurse some Wednesday! What are you thinking Sir?

It's time for reinstating Ms.Snider and to do what has to be done to keep her. The idea that the SWNDAH is incompetent, and in my mind, even unnecessary, is unanimous in these parts, and it is we who you are called to serve. "Can" the Board. They may be an added and unnecessary expense that can easily be done without. Righy here,right now, there is a structure to take on this responsibility. These are intelligent and capable people who can run their own affairs, and that I firmly believe, is a far superior and more compassionate way than the present from your Minister down.

I am gravely concerned about my neighbours, and equally so democracy.

Daniel Mills
9396 Waterford
RR 4, Digby NS
BOV 1AO

902-245-5171