Comparing Labour Force Capacity-Building and Access to Care in the Health Care Systems of Nova Scotia and Cuba

Abstract

Nova Scotia has a severe lack of family doctors and other workers that is deeply hurting its’ residence ability to access care. Cuba has the highest number of doctors per population in the world by far, and spends much less proportionately on health care while maintaining impressive outcomes for a country in it’s position. This study seeks to answer; Can Cuba’s methods of building labour capacity and providing access to primary care provide solutions to Nova Scotia’s health care problems? To answer this, this study employed interviews of Nova Scotian policy-makers and health care workers and of a Nova Scotian expert on Cuba, a survey of Nova Scotian residents, non-participant observation in Cuba, and extensive literature review on the Cuban and Nova Scotian health care systems. It concluded that Cuba’s approaches of recruiting health care workers from poor/ordinary communities, eliminating tuition costs for training, assigning medical graduates to communities in need for two years, and its focus on preventative health care are both the key reasons behind its successes in capacity-building and access-provision, as well as key differences between its system and Nova Scotia’s.