for the Nurse Practitioner Program by Barry Rand On July 13th over 60 people attended the City-County Health Unit Board meeting, and we overflowed the board room!!! We are facing a real crisis - if action is not taken by the Ministry of Health (George Smitherman is the Minister) by mid-August, Peterborough City/County will lose virtually all Primary Care providers in Havelock and Keene, and Dr Rayes will be under increased pressure. The Board and Jeff Leal agreed that a meeting with the Minister was urgently needed, and MPP Leal agreed to pursue that. Bill Casey has been actively involved in developing Primary Care Teams in the County, and this work is now being funded by the Health Ministry. He was at the meeting and agreed to participate in resolving the short term Nurse Practitioner challenge. Funding for NP positions has not been cancelled - it has been referred to the new LHIN's (Local Health Integration Networks), which will take some time to set up, after their predecessors were eliminated months ago. Even if LHIN's do a better job of reflecting local priorities, the short term damage will continue for the 20,000 people in Peterborough County who Now have no access to Primary Care. WORSE, we will lose the 4 NP's in Havelock and Keene, if the LHIN funding system doesn't get up and running by mid August, or no interim fix is implemented. With no ongoing funding, the Health Unit Board will have to issue layoff notices for the existing Nurse Practitioners, effective this September. The Board is not allowed to fund the NP's from County or Township funds, since ALL Primary Care funding must flow from the Ministry of Health. Reeve Whelan and Dr. Humphreys made excellent presentations to the Board and MPP Jeff Leal, showing how North Kawartha is prepared to incorporate a Nurse Practitioner into our expanded Medical Centre - a proven practical step to alleviate the physician shortage. They showed that without Nurse Practitioners in the short term we have a regional problem of denying citizens their right to medical care (as mandated in the Canada Health Act). The recent contract with the OMA (union of physicians in Ontario) increases fees for family physicians, but only in the 4th year, or two years from now. The low compensation for family practice is a big reason why we have a physician shortage, but with a two year delay, we can't expect the shortage to ease in any way. After his speech, Jim Whelan forcefully pushed MPP Leal to support funding for Nurse Practitioners NOW - when the LHIN's are operational, they could incorporate the NP program into the LHIN structure, without jeopardizing the highly effective NP program we have now. Jeff Leal agreed that it was a good suggestion, and that he would do his best. Editors Note: When will the government learn that to scrap a successful program just to start it again under another name so that they can take credit for a “new” program is reckless. That the bureaucracy involved just hurts its own citizens. |