Doctor Dispute Spills into Public Protest

A simmering dispute between the Nova Scotia Health Authority (NSHA) and a much respected local doctor appears ready to boil over.

Sources say the NSHA has been conducting a somewhat secret investigation following an unsigned complaint against Dr. Brian Ferguson.

Ferguson, a family practitioner from Amherst, is in a 25 month see-saw battle with local officials who threaten his licence to practice medicine.

Friends and patients of the doctor are lining up in great number to defend him in a what they describe as a threat to continued emergency services in Springhill and Pugwash.

Ferguson closed his family medicine practice a few years ago and dedicated his time to emergency rotations in the two smaller community hospitals. At the time, the emergency department had been closed for weeks at a time for nearly a year.

Since he started in the local emergency departments, service has been fairly stable, a fact many attribute to his consistent part in bolstering the service.

A Springhill based group — the Save Our Services Committee — has made the issue public and plans two protest marches in early June.

A spokesman for the group says the protests will focus on marches to the offices of the county’s two Members of the Legislature — June 1 in Springhill to Tory Rushton and June 7 to his counterpart in Cumberland North.

John Alderson says the protest is directed at the NSHA, but recent legislation banning protests at health care facilities and individual employees of Nova Scotia Health force them to redirect the public focus.

Alderson issued a letter to the media and he will be a guest on Six Rivers Radio’s Morning Talk, Thursday at 9:05.

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