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HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s premier likens doctor recruitment in his province to “squeezing a balloon.”

“Something pops out in another direction — and after you get that fixed, it pops out elsewhere,” Stephen McNeil said in a year-end interview with The Canadian Press.

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Seven months into a renewed mandate, and more than four years after he first won power campaigning on a “doctor for every Nova Scotian,” McNeil said he believes some progress is being made on the province’s persistent shortage of family physicians.

He admits, though, that’s “cold comfort” to those who are still without a family doctor.

McNeil pointed to areas where doctor shortages had been a chronic problem as an example of his balloon analogy.

“Digby had a chronic issue, we dealt with it. Shelburne, we had a number of physicians (to fill) there — now it’s starting to show up even in our urban centres.”

Earlier this month, provincial health officials said 42,000 Nova Scotians are actively seeking a family physician, although federal statistics, which include people who aren’t looking, place that number at closer to 100,000.