Nothing is Squirrel Proof!

Seriously, nothing.

This week I was gifted with a guaranteed, absolutely, positively squirrel-proof bird feeder.

Yeah, we guessed how that would go…

It’s been a week of prepping for our exit to Vancouver - the plan is for two years - so I’ve been building a shed to store our stuff while we rent the house, and a new deck railing, and weather proofing the barn, and about a thousand other things that had sort of been planned for the next year or two instead of the last month.

And yeah, the money spent last year on top line power tools, ladders, and sundry other items has felt very well invested.

I wish I could say the same about health-care in Nova Scotia.

The sense is that after years of underfunding health-care, this province has hit the point where even routine things consume immense amounts of time and effort. We’ve learned that in Nova Scotia you, the patient, need to take the time to really understand what you’re being told, and to research the implications.

The days when you just accepted what your family doctor told you are long gone.

Part of this is because any health care professional is over-loaded. Part of it is because so many of the people you meet are temp workers brought in at great expense from Ontario or elsewhere.

And part of it is because, honestly, the best and the brightest are not landing in Nova Scotia to practice.

A good example is antibiotics. In British Columbia you needed to beg a doctor to get them. The feeling is that they have been over-prescribed, and should be rationed before they become entirely useless as infectious nasties become immune to them.

That’s a story that I’ve been hearing for decades in Ontario and BC.

In Nova Scotia that’s ignored entirely, and I’ve been given antibiotics at least three times in the last year.

Overall it feels as if you’re getting adequate, one symptom at a time, in and out as quickly as possible health care, with no thought to long term implications.

Coupled to that are blood tests that are literally frozen, shipped to Ontario for testing, and which may not send back results for weeks or even months. And the harsh reality that unless you live in Halifax you’ll wind up doing the two hour drive to that town for anything beyond blood pressure tests and the like.

And, of course a near complete lack of communication - it’s not unusual to arrive at a specialist appointment with no idea what it is about.

All of this is about one thing: money. As seems to be true across Canada, but moreso than most other places, the decision has been made that giving money to multi-national corporations and industry is more important than spending it on doctors and hospitals.

This has been a choice, and a choice made out of the greed of the political bosses who run this province.

I’m afraid that until the ordinary people of Nova Scotia are willing to stand up, shout this from the rooftops, and vote accordingly, this will not change.

Sadly it feels as if instead of holding our politicians up to examination, the first choice is to blame immigrants, the homeless, and Trudeau for everything that is wrong.