A man who moved home to Nova Scotia late last year says he is ready to leave the Maritimes again because he can't find a family doctor.
While the people who run the healthcare system say they're doing what they can to find and recruit doctors, he says it's too late for him.
David Trites is leaving for Ontario this weekend, just six months after coming to stay with his mother in Pictou County, and nine months after contracting pancreatitus.
"I had just come out of the ICU. They'd tended to me for a while, I needed care at home and my family was willing provide it," explains Trites.
Trites says he is returning to Ontario, because despite all efforts to get a family doctor, he was unsuccessful.
"I thought, especially with the condition that he was in, that somebody would take him on because he was down to 113 lbs. when he came home," says his mother Janet Trites.
"We've gone to leaps and bounds to call every doctor's office in the phone book, to see if they would take on a new patient, and the response was no, we can't do it," says David Trites.
Trites is not alone according to recent statistics from the Nova Scotia Health Authority, there are 1,600 people in Pictou County currently without a family physician, and the area is short by about four doctors.
Nova Scotia's health minister says there some new doctors coming, for some areas of the province.
"Recruitment has gone very well this year, and many signings have taken place. We'll start in a few weeks, to make some very definitive announcements," says N.S. Health Minister Leo Glavine.
That's too late for David Trites; however, he plans to leave the province on Saturday.
With files from CTV Atlantic's Dan MacIntosh.
