140,000 Nova Scotians are waiting for a family doctor. Can virtual care help?

When Leah deForest and Donald McLennan moved to Nova Scotia in 2021, they knew their names would be low on the province's Need a Family Doctor registry.

"When you get into the province and you apply for your health card, you get added to a list," deForest told White Coat, Black Art host Dr. Brian Goldman. "And when we were on this list, we knew from the onset that there were many tens of thousands of people ahead of us.

"I had that terrible feeling that it would be some time before we got a doctor."

More than 142,000 Nova Scotians — over 14 per cent of the population — are on a waitlist for a family doctor in the province as of Sept. 1. The majority are like deForest and McLennan — "new to the area." 

Before virtual care was made more widely available, deForest and McLennan say they heard of patients visiting walk-in clinics and even emergency departments just to refill standard prescriptions. Virtual care introduced early in the pandemic, however, made it easier for patients to see doctors. 

Now, as some provinces move away from virtual care, Nova Scotia is prioritizing it for residents waiting on a family doctor. 

Virtual Care Nova Scotia offers unattached patients access to doctors and nurse practitioners via an app or website by Canadian tech startup Maple. Those patients can also be referred to a network of in-person clinics across the province when a video or phone call isn't adequate.

It's a program that hasn't been without challenges — some patients have reported waiting hours or days to get an appointment on the virtual platform.

But both deForest and McLennan, who moved from Winnipeg to Martins Brook, N.S., have relied on the service for day-to-day health concerns, as well as referrals for an EKG after chest pain and treatment following a tick bite, respectively.

"It's a lifeline for us, as simple as that," said McLennan. 

About 20 per cent of people who speak with a medical professional on Maple are referred to one of the province's 33 in-person clinics, which serve both existing and virtual patients.

At those clinics, patients can get a physical examination, access test results and receive ongoing care for chronic illnesses, such as diabetes or heart disease — even without a dedicated family physician.

"We don't just see these patients for one particular visit. We manage whatever their current health need is," said Stacy Lillington, a nurse practitioner at the Kearney Lake Clinic in Halifax.

"So if … their chronic diseases are poorly managed, we're going to follow them for a period of time to optimize medications, to optimize any co-ordination of care with community resources."