2024-04-11 16:18:45
Nurse practitioners specializing in primary care (IPSPL) will be able to care for people registered at the family doctor access window (GAMF) from April 15, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, announced on Thursday. Until now, only general practitioners might do this.
“It greatly enhances the nursing profession,” the minister declared Thursday morning, looking forward to “improving access for all Quebecers.”
If all goes well, this change might melt the list of orphan patients in Quebec which still numbers 630,000 people. In fact, a thousand nurses will eventually be able to each take care of between 250 and 800 patients, or between 250 and 800,000 people.
However, the measure, which will come into force next week, will immediately affect only a few dozen IPS, the equivalent of two to four for each of the ten specialized clinics already open.
Able to deal with 95% of problems
To patients who might fear being less well served by an NP than by a family doctor, the minister retorts that NPs are capable of treating 95% of patients’ problems and that they can refer to doctors when this is not necessary. is not the case.
“We can’t just put pressure on doctors,” he said. Mr. Dubé also mentions that in certain family medicine groups (GMF), 95% of patients are already followed by an IPS even if they are paired with a doctor.
For the moment, however, only nurses who work in the new IPS clinics will be able to take care of patients.
Those who work in GMF or in organizations like the SABSA clinic in Quebec do not yet have the power to do so. However, the government promises that “other phases of deployment” will follow to include them.
Exodus to the private sector?
On Thursday, Québec solidaire saw this announcement as “good news”. The party, however, fears that some of the IPS equipped with these new powers will leave the public network to practice in the private sector. In recent years, dozens of them have made this choice, mostly claiming that their working conditions were not sufficiently attractive.
“They will open their own private clinics, then they will charge money to patients,” argued Rosemont MP Vincent Marissal, who claims to receive complaints on this subject at his constituency office in Montreal.
Questioned on this subject, Minister Christian Dubé recognized the existence of “labor issues” in IPS clinics. However, he pleads that “the debate on private matters” had “nothing to do” with his announcement.
More details will follow.
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