Quebec's nurse practitioners to take on patients waiting for a family doctor

It’s unchartered territory for nurse practitioners in Quebec who specialize in primary care. Beginning next week, they’ll be able to take on patients who are waiting for a family doctor. Before this, this law and this rule that we have today, you had to have a doctor, you had to have AGP. Now you will be able to be association with an IPS, and I think that’s a very, very good news for many Quebecers at the moment. Only general practitioners have access to the province’s registry of patients. Advocates say these new powers will help give Quebecers better access to primary care. Let’s remind everyone that since 1973, Ontario nurse practitioners can, as a matter of fact, practice 2004 in Alberta, 2003 in BC So we’re more or less 25 years late, but finally we’re getting it. There are currently over 630,000 Quebecers waiting for a family doctor. President of Quebec’s Order of nurses says the new responsibility should eventually help the backlog of people on the list. We’ll have to see how the plan is implemented and what kind of collaboration there will be with the doctors, he said. It should help, but perhaps we won’t see results right away. As of next Monday, primary care nurse practitioners working in 11 clinics will be able to register patients. The government says it plans to extend the measure to all practices so that more than 1000 nurse practitioners will eventually be able to take on patients. Felicia Perillo, Global News, Montreal.