by The provincial NDP says its obtained data through a freedom of information request showing almost 10,000 people in the left the emergency department without being seen last year in the Health Authority’s Eastern Zone that includes Cape Breton.
It says the figure marks an increase of 47 per cent from the year before.
Provincewide, the number was 43,000 last year.
That’s up by 60 percent from the year before.
The data also show the number of people admitted to the emergency department who didn’t have a family doctor grew by 40 per cent in the Eastern Zone.
There are now about 95,000 people in the province on the waitlist for a family doctor.
That’s an increase of about 25,000 from last year.