By James Hutt, Director of the Nova Scotia Health Coalition.
As Nova Scotia is forcing low income seniors to pay more for drugs and the province’s largest hospital is literally swimming in rodents and disease, tax payers are being asked to cough up $100 million to pay off one of the largest oil companies on the planet.
The CBC has revealed that the Nova Scotia government owes an additional $98 million to multinational oil and gas corporation ExxonMobil and its partners. The money will be refunded from royalties earned by the province for Canada’s first offshore natural gas project — the Sable Offshore Energy Project.
Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada’s only tertiary level hospital, the Victoria General Hospital, is falling apart and patients live in “nightmarish conditions.” The 67 year old hospital’s state became a crisis last September when one of the buildings flooded and cancelled 106 surgeries and forced the relocation of 50 patients.
But the hospital has been plagued with problems for decades. Tests found Legionnaire’s disease found in the facility in the early 80’s and it remained untreated until the death of a patient in 2005. It flooded previously in 2012 and again in 2013. In 2015, the Health Authority closed two floors due to bed bug infestations and cancelled operations when surgical instruments were contaminated with airborne debris.