Ontario seeks expanded role for many health-care providers
TheGlobeadMail.com – Life/Health – Ontario seeks expanded role for many health-care providers
May 12, 2009. KEITH LESLIE, The Canadian Press
TORONTO — Ontario wants to broaden the scope of practice for many health-care professionals as part of a strategy to address the chronic shortage of doctors, proposing new rules that would allow nurse practitioners to set broken bones and give dental hygienists the power to write prescriptions and sell medicine.
Under legislation introduced yesterday, dentists would be able to fill prescriptions, pharmacists would be allowed to write refills for prescriptions and physiotherapists would be given the power to order X-rays and treat injuries.
The proposed changes will make Ontario’s health-care system more efficient and more accessible, Premier Dalton McGuinty said.
“It will free up doctors to do those kinds of things which only doctors can do,” he said. “There’s a number of things doctors are doing on their own right now that we think other health-care professionals can do as well.”
An estimated 850,000 people in Ontario don’t have a family doctor.
Mr. McGuinty said adding new responsibilities to a host of different health-care professionals doesn’t mean the government will be offering them additional pay.
“We’re talking about increasing the other kinds of rewards for health-care professionals, which is to recognize that they can do more for us [and] we want them to do more for us,” Mr. McGuinty said.
“There’s a tremendous … psychic reward that comes from knowing you can in fact do more than you have in the past.”
Alan Hudson, the man in charge of Ontario’s strategy to reduce health-care waiting times, said the legislation signals a shift to consumerism in a service industry that he said was originally designed more to suit the needs of the providers – doctors – rather than patients.
“Consumers, people who pay for this – it’s your tax dollars and mine – they’re going to call the shots,” Dr. Hudson said. “Physicians aren’t going to decide that.
“About 50 per cent of what a family doctor does could be done by other people, so they can concentrate on doing doctor stuff, and other non-MD health-care providers can do that work.”
The Ontario College of Pharmacists said it is “very pleased” with the proposed legislation.
The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario called the bill “a good first step,” but said the changes don’t go far enough because the government bowed to pressure from a powerful doctors lobby.
“To me, this is catering to the Ontario Medical Association,” said RNAO executive director Doris Grinspun.
If the province is serious about increasing access to health services and decreasing wait times, it is imperative that nurse practitioners be able to admit and discharge in in-patient settings.”
The New Democrats agreed that nurse practitioners should be allowed to write any prescription, not just those on a pre-approved list, and said it is crucial that nurse practitioners also be given powers to admit and discharge patients from hospitals.
“More and more in rural Ontario, physicians refuse to have admitting privileges, so you have hospitals that are struggling with no physician on staff, and the nurse practitioners are not allowed to admit or discharge,” complained NDP health critic France Gélinas.
“New medications come out fast and furious – something like 50 a month – so [nurse practitioners] are forever having to prescribe from an outdated list.”
The Progressive Conservatives welcomed the idea of expanding the scope of practice for health-care professionals.
“I personally had an experience where I didn’t get a proper treatment from a doctor in Ontario, and it was diagnosed appropriately by a doctor’s assistant in Lake Placid, New York,” interim Opposition leader Bob Runciman said.
“I think we can look at broadening those responsibilities in Ontario quite safely as long as the training is in place.”
The goal of the legislation is to reduce the number of stops a patient must make in navigating Ontario’s health-care system, Health Minister David Caplan said.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 12th, 2009 at 12:17 pm and is filed under Debates, Governance Debates, Health Debates. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
64 Responses to “Ontario seeks expanded role for many health-care providers”
« Older Comments | Newer Comments »
Leave a Reply
Recent Comments
Enjoyed studying this, very good stuff, thanks.
very good post, i certainly love this web site, keep on it
This has to be one of my favorite posts! And on top of thats its also very helpful topic for newbies. thank a lot for the information!
Our community leaders need to read this, and look at developing some of your recommendations.
I like to spend my free time by scaning various internet recourses. Today I came across your site and I found it is as one of the best free resources available! Well done! Keep on this quality!
Good post. I study something more difficult on different blogs everyday. It’s going to always be stimulating to learn content material from other writers and observe a little bit one thing from their store. I’d prefer to use some with the content material on my blog whether you don’t mind. Natually I’ll give you a link in your web blog. Thanks for sharing.
We’re developing a conference, and it looks like you would be a great speaker.
I’ve been surfing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all web owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.
I don’t know if it’s just me or if everybody else experiencing issues with your site. It appears as though some of the written text on your content are running off the screen. Can someone else please provide feedback and let me know if this is happening to them as well? This could be a problem with my web browser because I’ve had this happen before. Appreciate it
Our communities really need to deal with this.
Only a smiling visitor here to share the love (:, btw outstanding style and design .
I was reading through some of your content on this internet site and I believe this web site is very informative ! Continue posting .
I dont think Ive caught all the angles of this subject the way youve pointed them out. Youre a true star, a rock star man. Youve got so much to say and know so much about the subject that I think you should just teach a class about it
Beneficial Blog! I had been simply just debating that there are plenty of screwy results at this issue you now purely replaced my personal belief. Thank you an excellent write-up.
Loving the info on this website , you have done outstanding job on the blog posts.
I think that may be an interesting element, it made me assume a bit. Thanks for sparking my considering cap. On occasion I get so much in a rut that I simply really feel like a record.
Pretty impressive article. I just stumbled upon your site and wanted to say that I have really enjoyed reading your opinions. Any way I’ll be coming back and I hope you post again soon.
This will be helpful for my family.
I do not even know how I ended up here, but I thought this post was good. I do not know who you are but certainly you are going to a famous blogger if you are not already 😉 Cheers!
Certainly. And I have faced it. Let’s discuss this question. Here or in PM.