Number of people on N.S. primary care registry continues to go down

A doctor wears a lab coat and stethoscope in an exam room at a health clinic in Calgary, Friday, July 14, 2023. (The Canadian Press/Jeff McIntosh)

The number of Nova Scotians in need of primary care has gone down again, according to the province’s health authority.

Nova Scotia Health says 119,670 people were on the Need a Family Practice Registry as of Nov. 27.

That’s down more than 12,000 people from earlier in the month, when it sat at 132,166 people on the registry.

“We have never seen these numbers. Two years ago, maybe, but this is unprecedented,” says Dr. Maria Alexiadis, senior medical director of primary health care and chronic disease management network. “Those are people that are either coming new to the province or who their family doctor has either moved or retired or sometimes you want to move to another part of the province because you retired.”

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The health authority says of those removed, 10,477 people were attached to care in the month of November. The other 2,019 people were removed after it was confirmed they already had a provider.

The percentage of Nova Scotians currently on the Need a Family Practice Registry is 11.3 per cent.

For those looking to add themselves to the list, Dr. Alexiadis says the process is the same as always.

“If they call 811, they can also go online and say you need a family practice registry and Google that and it will show them how to do it electronically or by phone,” she said. “The piece that’s a little different is that when they do call, it’s not telling us your name and identifying yourself. We are also doing a bit of a health questionnaire to see how do we also understand the complexity of the people that are on the registry and that may also help us as we create those pathways and show people where they have to go to get the care they need.

“We need to find clinical pathways to physicians to be attached to get the care they need. And so that has been the reason for everything that we do in the primary health care space.”

Nova Scotia Health says its next update on the registry will be in early January.

Previous counts

According to numbers released by the health authority, those in need of primary care continues to go down.

As of Oct. 4, the registry had 145,114 people on the list. About a month before that, the list stood at 164,489.

The registry, which went public in 2018, recorded 100,592 people in July 2022; that number shot to 152,001 by July 2023.

-With files from Emma Convey

For more Nova Scotia news, visit our dedicated provincial page.