April 26 2006

Hon. Minister of Health

Dear Hon. Minister:

Thank you very much for your reply.  The NS Citizens' Health Care Network
would like to have a meeting with you to discuss, in particular, the
Pharmacare Program and Privitzation.

We applaud you on the prevention and health promotion because health care
needed a long term plan.  Working towards making Nova Scotians healthier
will benefit everyone in the long run.

While I greatly appreciate your replies, I must reinstate that though the
parking charges may not be an insured service, it should not be a barrier to
health care, nor should costs of any kind be a hinderence for patients
having to get treatment or go to clinics.  This is unfair and provides a
great deal of additional stress on all-ready sick patients.

We truly believe that patients must be treated differently than a "business"
charging for parking.  It is not a matter of "wanting" to go to the medical
facility, but a "necessity", thereby forming a barrier to access the health
care a patient needs.  It should never be considered where it is covered
under MSI or not, it is a necessity for medical treatment.   I can assure
you, I have personally spoke to a great number of patients, doctors and
nurses for the last 3 1/2 years who all say the same thing, the cost to park
to access health care is deployable and that it is a major hardship for many
of their patients.  I personally can attest to that when I went through my
long journey of cancer operation, chemo then radiation treatments and then
followup.  I had no choice but to go to a place where payment was required,
yet on three different occasions, I had to cancel doctor's appointments due
to lack of funds.  This should not happen to any one nor should patients be
put through it.

We believe there is a workable solution to this situation and we are hoping
you are open to a discussion with us on this and the other important issues
listed above.

We look forward to your response and await a possible meeting date so we can
further discuss issues affecting the health of Nova Scotians.  I regret we
missed the opportunity to meet with you at the meet and greet, but business
took many of us out of town on that day.   We did appreciate the offer and
look forward to earliest meeting date with you.

Sincerely yours,
Debbie L. Kelly, SSStJ
NS Citizens' Health Care Network
(902)455-9164