The number of specialized nurse practitioners (SNPs) has more than doubled in three years in Quebec, but with the proliferation of positions and the opening of new clinics, the deadlines are tight to train enough of them.
On March 31, 2023, their number in Quebec should have exceeded 1,300 people, according to estimates from the Ministry of Health provided to the Duty.
This is more than twice the 573 counted in 2020, and Quebec is getting closer to the 2000 target that the government has set for 2025.
However, the Minister of Health, Christian Dubé, has just added pressure on demand by announcing the opening of 23 IPS clinics, including six this year, notes the Order of Nurses of Quebec.
“The success of this approach is linked to the condition of being able to count on a sufficient number of IPS”, indicated the organization in a press release issued the day following the budget.
The three nursing clinics that have just opened their doors in Montreal also depend on IPS working elsewhere, recalls its president, Luc Mathieu.
As revealed The duty recently, these clinics are not operating at full capacity because they depend on nurses dividing their time between their activities and those of family medicine groups.
Like in Ontario
Despite everything, the president of the Association representing the IPS, Christine Laliberté, is optimistic. “It’s going to be scalable. We will probably not open the 23 clinics at the same time, but rather as new cohorts are able to fill the sites. I see it as a super interesting opportunity,” argues the president of the Association of Specialized Nurse Practitioners of Quebec.
According to his estimates, each nursing clinic will need, on average, five or six IPS to roll. “Our association had already mentioned that it wanted us to open this type of clinic, a bit like in Ontario. »
From the outset, she adds, these new clinics will offer new internship options to graduates. A major challenge since the scarcity of internships has slowed down the training of IPS in recent years.
Rising targets in universities
In the fall of 2019, the University of Montreal had to limit its IPS training program to 23 places, for lack of sufficient internships for everyone.
The university that trains the largest number of IPS in Quebec no longer has this kind of problem, according to its vice-dean, Sylvie Gendron. No student has seen her course delayed because she might not find anyone to supervise her internship, she says. “We had to be agile, to do it in advance. »
This year, the program welcomed no less than 90 new students, including regarding forty in the “adult care” section of the program. Although this was an increase from the previous year, the cohort was smaller than the target of 50 recruits given to it by the department.
However, at the rate at which applications for admission are coming in for the next session, the vice-dean is convinced that she can do better in 2024-2025. This year, the number of applications increased by 30% compared to the previous year.