Laura Fowler thought Nova Scotia’s health-care system was going to change after her son took his own life in 2015 and his story went viral.
But Saturday afternoon, she and nine other speakers took turns on the steps at the old Halifax Memorial Library during the Rally for Health Care and pleaded for change.
Jackson, Fowler’s son, took his life on June 3, 2015 because he wasn’t able to access appropriate mental health resources.
“My son gave his life for you,” Fowler said through tears.
“Four years later, I haven’t seen any change. All I’ve seen change is people coming together, but our health system has not changed.”
Jon Stickney said he attended the rally because of the injustice his father saw before his death in 2018. Peter Charles Stickney couldn’t get a family doctor in Pictou County and had to travel to Halifax to see a physician. Stickney said that his father eventually ended up in a hospital and was treated poorly.
“I had to watch him suffer at the hands of the people that were supposed to care for him, and I just hope somehow we can make a difference together,” Stickney said.
But past health-care problems, such as Fowler’s and Stickney’s, still exist today, claimed multiple physicians at the rally.
Dr. Ajantha Jayabarathan said she sounded the alarm back in 2015 because she knew many doctors were approaching retirement, and now Nova Scotia is in a health-care crisis.
“Each Nova Scotian that is here today represents at least 100 or 1,000 others that are suffering,” Jayabarathan said.
Dr. Rebecca Brewer, an emergency physician at Valley Regional Hospital in Kentville, said “people are being pushed to the end of their rope.”
“Just the other day, a patient lashed out,” Brewer said, adding that the patient, MRI technician, nurses and doctor weren’t to blame.
“You are left and treated with indignity until you can no longer handle anymore . . . and we end up turning it inward and responding to each other in anger,” she said.
Brewer, joined by fellow doctors Rob Miller and Keith MacCormick, led roughly 50 people down to Province House for a peaceful protest. As the group approached the front of the building, a security guard and government employee were shutting the gates.
The employee told Brewer the group was allowed to protest on public property but couldn’t do so on Province House grounds.
Leslie Tilley, organizer of the rally, said the event marked the public taking a stand, and she hopes the government will take action.
“We will not tolerate this any longer,” Tilley said.
“Nova Scotia citizens are owed better.”
