Canada in the Balance by Bob Rae

Author:Bob Rae
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781551991603
Publisher: McClelland & Stewart
Published: 2008-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

Canada faces shortages in the number of health professionals in our system. Shortages of nurses, family doctors, anesthesiologists, and other specialists put pressures on the system, contribute to bottlenecks, and thereby add to the problem of wait times for procedures. Provinces are actively moving to increase the number of spaces available in schools of nursing, medicine, etc. But it takes eight years to develop a medical specialist, for example. And we can’t wait that long.

Efforts have begun in some quarters to support more innovative use of the professionals currently in the system and maximize the use of skills that health professionals have. For example, general practice in rural areas could be assisted through the expanded use of nurse practitioners. Use of nurse anesthesiologists is widely practised in other jurisdictions, and could be a highly effective way of dealing with a serious current shortage. Patient safety and quality of care would, of course, have to be paramount in any such initiatives.

We see far too many unnecessary, preventable cancers develop because screening is not occurring on the scale it should, because of the lack of endoscopy professionals and gastroenterologists. In the U.K. and at Kaiser Permanente in the United States, nurses are currently providing these endoscopy services. We need to learn from these innovators.

What we lack in Canada right now are jurisdiction-wide initiatives for such extended practice schemes for nurses and primary-care practitioners to take on roles that will help with the current pressures within the delivery system.

We also need to standardize processes across the country for the recognition of the credentials of immigrant health professionals. This, too, would help greatly in expediting our ability to hire the professionals we need to deliver care in our communities. It will require extensive collaboration with the provinces and self-regulating professions. But it has to happen.

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