How this team is transforming health care for African Nova Scotian women

After years of intuitive feeling dismissed by the health-care scheme, Kate MacKinnon says she’s eventually been able-bodied to get at the treatment she deserves. 

For almost a year, she’s been a patient of the Nova Scotia Sisterhood, a team of all-Black female health-care providers dedicated to offering culturally sensitive care.

The program serves African Nova Scotian and Black women and gender-diverse individuals 19 and older — with or without a family doctor — in the province's central health zone.

The Sisterhood officially launched in 2023, inspired by the success of its counterpart, the Nova Scotia Brotherhood. It’s supported by research and advocacy from the Health Association of African Canadians.

In July, the team moved into its new clinic on Wyse Road in Dartmouth, where staff perform a broad range of services — from Pap tests, blood pressure checks and chronic disease management to clinical therapy and nutrition counselling. 

Delivered through the Nova Scotia Health Authority, the program aims to break down systemic barriers that Black women often face when navigating the health-care system, according to Natalie Johnson, the program’s team lead and registered dietitian.

“They’re able to come here and let some of those walls down, [be] able to open up about things that they may not be able to open up with a health-care provider who doesn’t get their experience as a Black woman,” she said. 

MacKinnon said she’s working on healing both physically and psychologically from experiences of racism and discrimination she’s endured throughout her life. But within the traditional health-care system, she said clinicians rarely acknowledged how those experiences affected her overall health. 

Tykora Brinton, the family practice nurse who handles all new patient intakes, says the health-care system is “stretched to its limits,” leaving many family doctors only 15 minutes to see each patient.

At the Sisterhood, initial appointments last an hour, with 30-minute followups. 

“You have time to relax and talk about those things and not feel like you have to just come in, say your stuff and get out,” she said. “We’re here to listen to you.” 

Nurse practitioner Kiersten Boyle said she’s had more than 1,000 office visits since May, with many of her patients behind on their routine screenings, like Pap tests for cervical cancer. 

“Some of them haven’t seen providers in 10 or 15 years so they have a long list of things we need to address,” said Boyle.

That’s in line with research that shows Black women in Nova Scotia are less likely to get tested for breast and cervical cancers. 

“A lot of them have really negative experiences going to the [emergency room] or witnessing loved ones die in the hospital, and it makes them not want to go and get the care that they need. They put things on the back burner,” said Boyle. 

That hesitancy to seek care is one key reason why the Sisterhood also brings care directly into some African Nova Scotian communities.

On Wednesdays, a family doctor rotates between satellite clinics in Halifax, Dartmouth, Upper Hammonds Plains, East Preston and North Preston. 

Johnson said the outreach also helps patients who have transportation or accessibility challenges.

A spokesperson for the health authority could not say whether there are plans to expand the Sisterhood’s mandate into more communities.

But MacKinnon said she wants to see the group working right across the province — especially in more rural communities — so that all Black women in Nova Scotia have access to the same care she’s benefited from.

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