NDP Bill to proclaim Nurse Practitioner Week passes Third Reading

QUEEN’S PARK – NDP MPP and Health and Long-Term Care Critic France Gélinas’ Private Member’s Bill, An Act to proclaim Nurse Practitioner Week, passed Third Reading in the Legislature yesterday.

The bill will make the second week of November a time to celebrate the province’s Nurse Practitioners and highlight some of the challenges they face.

Gélinas has long advocated eliminating the challenges Ontario’s 3,000 nurse practitioners face. “They do remarkable work every day, but they continue to face barriers that make it harder for Ontarians, for us, to get the care we need,” she said.

Theresa Agnew, CEO of the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario, lauded the importance of the bill for nurse practitioners.

“This particular week in November is celebrated in the United States, and I am very proud that Ontario is the first province in Canada to declare a Nurse Practitioner’s Week. We are very excited about this step, and are thankful for everything MPP Gélinas has done for health equity and for health care in Ontario,” Agnew said.

Gélinas said the week will place attention on the challenges facing ‎nurse practitioners and present opportunities to resolve them and provide better care for Ontarians.

“Salaries for nurse practitioners working in our communities have been frozen for eight long years while their scope of practice and responsibility has increased exponentially,” Gélinas said. “Primary care agencies cannot recruit and retain nurse practitioners after eight years of wage freezes and that has a direct impact on their patients. Nurse practitioners cannot do a urine dip for pregnancy although any one of us can walk into a pharmacy and do one. Nurse practitioners cannot use a defibrillator in their clinic, but their secretary and all of us can.”

“Nurse Practitioner Week will be an opportunity to remove all of the barriers to quality care and let our nurse practitioners practice to their full scope for the benefit of the patients of Ontario,” Gélinas said.