In an effort to get everyone in the province a primary care provider, the provincial government is turning to rely even more on nurse practitioners.
The government has opened another round of applications for nurse practitioners who want to deliver publicly-funded primary care. This is the third round of applications, but this time there will be no cap on the number of contracts the province can enter into.
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“We’re looking at this from an all-of-the-above approach, because when we talk about access to a primary care provider, it doesn’t necessarily need to be a doctor, it can be a nurse practitioner, it might even be your pharmacist,” said Rural and Remote Health Minister Lori Carr.
She said the province is still filling the 30 spots it opened in the last intake, but said there was a lot of interest, hence the new intake without a cap.
“The primary goal is to ensure that individuals have access to that primary care right across the province,” said Carr.
However, the minister said this doesn’t mean the province is giving up on finding more family doctors.
“Our goal is, absolutely, to continue recruiting doctors and having those doctors in those communities, and nurse practitioners can still be a great part of the team,” said Carr.
When the province started signings its first tranche of contracts, the health minister said each one costs the province at least $233,000.
The current intake for applications is set to finish at the end of March.
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