CEO Message: Restoration of Provincial Funding
The Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia welcomes the Government of Nova Scotia’s decision to reinstate funding to organisations supporting seniors, including our own.
This decision recognizes that community-based dementia supports are an essential part of Nova Scotia’s broader healthcare system. These services help families navigate complex care, support people to remain safely at home longer, and reduce pressure on hospitals and long-term care.
It is good news for the thousands of Nova Scotians living with dementia and the care partners who support them.
At the same time, we remain deeply concerned for our colleagues in other sectors whose funding has not been restored. Community organisations across Nova Scotia work together to support the well-being of our province, and funding instability in one area affects the strength of all.
Over the past two weeks, we have spent significant time reviewing budgets, preparing contingency plans, supporting staff through uncertainty, and assessing potential impacts on programs and services. Now, we begin the work of revising those plans once again.
This work is necessary, but it takes valuable time away from service delivery and community support programming. Organisations like the Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia operate with very lean resources, so we can prioritize frontline services. Simply put, we do not have the capacity to absorb repeated cycles of rapid reorganisation.
Even with these challenges, the long-term picture remains clear. Dementia diagnoses in Nova Scotia are expected to nearly double by 2050. The need for education, risk reduction, caregiver support, and system navigation will continue to grow. Expanding brain health awareness, encouraging risk reduction, and working to make our communities more dementia friendly will be crucial to preparing for the future we know is coming.
This year is also a critical planning moment for our organisation. Our current multi-year funding agreement with the province, which began in 2022, enters its final year in 2026–2027 and concludes on March 31, 2027.
That investment of stable, reliable multi-year funding transformed our ability to work strategically. It allowed us to grow our team, strengthen frontline programs, and develop new capacity focused on systems-levelimprovements that help Nova Scotians navigate dementia care across health and community services.
Later this year, we will submit a new multi-year funding application that will help shape our work from 2027 through 2032. As we do so, we remain mindful of the fiscal challenges facing the province and what they may mean for community-based organisations like ours.
The future state of dementia in our province demands intentional, coordinated focus and long-range, reliable core funding. We look forward to continuing to work constructively with the Province of Nova Scotia to develop sustainable, long-term approaches to dementia support, approaches that meet the needs of Nova Scotians today while preparing for the realities ahead.
As always, our mission remains unchanged: Help for Today. Hope for Tomorrow.
With care,
John Britton
CEO, Alzheimer Society of Nova Scotia