October 13 Day of Action

On October 13th the Health Coalition, local activists and Save Our Rural Healthcare/The NS Healthcare Crisis Working Group organized protests in Windsor, Digby, Yarmouth, Shelburne and Sydney.

CBC news covered the Windsor and Digby rallies:

Chris Parsons, co-ordinator of the Nova Scotia Health Coalition, drove from Dartmouth to attend the rally in Windsor

Parsons said long-term care and seniors issues were the points of emphasis.

"I think that was one of the important aspects of having rallies in a few different communities was that the issues are all connected, but each community has its own struggles and challenges," Parsons said.

Parsons said about a dozen people attended the event held in front of the West Hants Exhibition. The initial plan was to march to the nearby hospital, but a number of people couldn't make the journey because of mobility issues.

Instead, demonstrators stood and waved to traffic and chatted with people who were making their way into a flea market that was going on at the exhibition.

"People were sharing personal stories. With the crowd that was there, it was largely folks who had really serious concerns about long-term care and were worried both about their parents in a number of cases," he said.

Tri-County Vanguard (Yarmouth, Shelburne and Digby) provided pre-event information “Save Our Rural Healthcare Provincial Day of Action rallies being held in Shelburne, Yarmouth and Digby on Oct. 13” and also covered the Digby, Shelburne and Yarmouth rallies.

The Cape Breton Post covered the Sydney rally:

"People are dying," Martin said. "We are hearing from doctors that people are dying because they can't get treatment fast enough or they they may have to travel to Halifax and a lot of times that is too late. People are dying unnecessarily in Cape Breton and that is not acceptable."