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HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s NDP says the emergence of a new private Halifax clinic that aims to reduce the strain on the public health-care system is “deeply troubling.”

Unified Health bills itself as a “community triage centre” where patients are assessed for a fee by nurse practitioners, not doctors.

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Unified Health, which opened late last month, says it aims to help “redirect some of the non-emergency traffic that visits the emergency room.”

In the legislature Tuesday, NDP Leader Gary Burrill suggested the clinic only exists because the provincial government has been unable to fix a chronic doctor shortage that has left many Nova Scotians without a family physician.

“Is it right that a person in our province should have to pay $35 for a medical appointment?” Burrill asked Premier Stephen McNeil.

“A person could fairly conclude that the emergence of a private, for-profit clinic providing a service that is supposed to be provided in Nova Scotia free indicates that the job the government is doing on providing health care is missing the mark at a pretty basic level.”