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N.S. Liberals promise free tuition to help MD shortage

Gov’t would fund 20 medical students every year for five years, at a cost of $6 million

Liberal Leader Stephen McNeil is promising to offer free tuition to 100 medical school students on the condition they agree to practise as family doctors in under-serviced areas of Nova Scotia. McNeil, campaigning in Halifax for the June 9 election, says a Liberal government would provide tuition for 20 students every year for the next five years, a proposal that would cost more than $6 million to implement.

Under the proposal, doctors taking part in the program would have to be willing to work in under-serviced areas for at least five years.

The Liberal leader says about 50,000 Nova Scotians do not have a doctor.

McNeil says his government would force participants to move to certain areas if none of the participants volunteered to work there.

He says the expectation is that once a doctor is dispatched to an under-serviced area, they will be more likely to stay there once they put down roots in the community.

– The Canadian Press

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