Nurse practitioners work as primary care providers in community clinics, diagnosing and treating conditions, prescribing drugs and ordering testing.
With about 2,700 now practicing in Ontario, nurse practitioners also work in a variety of other settings, including hospitals and long-term care facilities.
The valuable work that nurse practitioners do is being celebrated Nov. 12-18, during Nurse Practitioners' Week.
Thanks to a private members' bill put forward by Nickel Belt MPP and NDP health and long-term care critic France Gélinas, the awareness week is officially being observed for the first time in Ontario.
“I think this is something that will grow over time, so that more and more people know the fantastic role you play in our health-care system,” said Gélinas.
She made the remarks at a Nov. 13 press conference at Health Sciences North, where Deputy Greater Sudbury Mayor Al Sizer also read a proclamation marking Nurse Practitioners' Week.
Nurse practitioners have been around for about 40 years in Ontario, said Roberta Heale, a Laurentian University professor who trains the next generation of nurse practitioners at the school.
In 1998, the province passed legislation allowing nurse practitioners to work autonomously, diagnosing and treating patients.
“We had some barriers with the list of meds we could prescribe,” Heale said. “That has now been changed to what they call open prescribing. We can prescribe anything, including controlled substances.”
But in the years following that legislation, many nurse practitioners were still underemployed, as positions allowing them to work to the extent of their scope of practice just didn't exist yet.
Ten years ago, in 2007, Heale, along with colleague Marilyn Butcher, opened Ontario's first nurse practitioner-led clinic here in Greater Sudbury, which offers primary care services.
Now called Sudbury District Nurse Practitioner Clinics, the organization currently has two sites – one in Sudbury and the other in Lively.
There's now 25 nurse practitioner-led clinics in Ontario running on the same model as the Sudbury clinic, including two others in this region — in Capreol and French River.
Heale said Nurse Practitioners' Week feels like a “milestone” and a “huge accomplishment.”
“The role has just evolved and changed positively for the decades I've been an NP,” she said.
“All I see are really good things ahead for nurse practitioners. I think we're making a mark in health care, and we're really being able to make positive changes for families and patients.”
