Senior Officials Identify Problems Of Racism In N.s. Health-Care System

Nova Scotia doctors and health-care professionals who are not white face racism from colleagues and patients, unequal access to job opportunities and promotions, and barriers to even entering the medical field.

Those problems are now prominently on the desks of the province's most senior health-care leaders, identified in a report advanced by the former CEO of Nova Scotia's health authority and in the briefing book prepared for Health Minister Michelle Thompson when she was sworn in last year.

None of the information is new or comes as a surprise, particularly for those who live that reality. But Dr. Babar Haroon, a critical care and internal medicine physician who also teaches at Dalhousie University's medical school, said having such problems highlighted for health-care leaders at the highest levels means it's in front of the people who need to hear it.