LOWER SACKVILLE: The NDP MLA is focused on making sure the provincial government keeps its promises made in 2021 regarding the Cobequid Health Centre in Lower Sackville.
Paul Wozney said he will be going throughout the Sackville-Cobequid area on Fridays during the summer months with a petition calling on the province to honour their promises. The petition will be part of his door knocking this summer.
Among those promises was to expand emergency care, to extend the hours that emergencies are available, to create inpatient capacity, and expand the range of outpatient care available at the Cobequid Health Centre.
“Three years later, and there’s no sign that anything is actually happening or is going to happen,” Wozney said in an interview with The Laker News.
“But people in community are feeling the strain of a rapidly growing community.”
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He said they have apartments and homes going all up all over the place.
“People value having such a wonderful facility and community, but recognize the incredible pressure it’s under,” he said. “It’s not just that the Cobequid Health Centre matters to the people of Sackville.
“It’s the closest emergency facility for people in Bedford, for parts of Dartmouth.”
Wozney said the service when you can get it is top notch, but wait times are up.
“The short hours, people would like to be able to go at any time of day rather than just, morning through midnight,” he said. “We’re asking them to keep the word that they gave.”
He was asked why he thinks the government hasn’t kept those promises they made.
“I think it’s really a question that you would think government would be keen to answer given that this is a government that’s kind of hung its hat on getting health care right,” Wozney said. “This is a pretty important piece to get right in Halifax.”
He said he asked some questions during budget estimate process in the spring sitting in the legislature on where the project stood and if the money was still there.
“The only thing I got back was improvements at Cobequid are related to the larger project of redevelopment of the Halifax infirmary, the QE II,” he said.
“There’s a central planning process that’s managing all the moving parts of emergency and inpatient and outpatient care connected, and we just don’t know where things are.”
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Wozney said they hope to connect with as many people in Sackville as they can over the summer months.
“We want to connect with people person to person, but the petition is online,” he said. “They can find it through our Sackville-Cobequid MLA Facebook, and Instagram accounts.”
He said Cobequid is a facility that matters to a lot of Nova Scotians, not just in Sackville-Cobequid.
“This isn’t just the NDP MLA knocking on doors. We know this is a priority for people in an area of 50 kilometres outwards of Sackville,” he said.
“This is not a partisan issue. This is about delivering services that are good for Nova Scotians.:
Wozney said all he is asking the government to be is more transparent on the timeline to deliver on their 2021 promises they made.
“We’re really giving them an opportunity come into the fore front, be transparent about plans, and let people know when they can count on, expanded, improved services being a reality at the Cobequid.”
