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

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