MANITOULIN—Manitoulin Health Centre (MHC) has received one-time funding that will allow it to hire nurse practitioners in the emergency department at both sites in Mindemoya and Little Current and alleviating some of the workload for physicians.
“We are really excited for the funding that will be able support our physicians in the emergency departments where patient volumes continue to increase,” Paula Fields, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of MHC told The Expositor last week.
Ms. Fields explained, “On July 19 we received an opportunity for one time funding (from the province) for emergency department stabilization. In the funding envelope we were able to apply for two nurse practitioners to work in our emergency departments at both hospital facilities.”
Ms. Fields worked alongside members of the MHC professional staff to develop a proposal (they had seven days to put forward a proposal to receive the funding).
“The funding was approved, so we are now able to hire two people (nurse practitioners) one for each hospital site,” said Ms. Fields. “This is one-time funding, but we are hopeful it continues and we will be posting the job notices as permanent ongoing positions.” She noted the MHC has had a nurse practitioner working part-time at the Mindemoya Hospital (emergency department) who has been a very valuable member of the hospital team, working to reduce the physician’s workload and getting patients in quickly. “It also improves patient satisfaction.”
Physicians will still need to be in the hospital emergency departments. “The nurse practitioners will be able to process about 50 percent of patients in the emergency department,” continued Ms. Fields. “It is recognized the skill set of a nurse practitioner in an emergency department is a little different than in primary care. In the emergency department (the nurse practitioners) will be part of the MHC team and be able to deal with things like patients experiencing trauma and cardiac arrest.”
“The challenging part of all of this is going to be recruiting two nurse practitioners,” said Ms. Fields. She said there is a shortage of nurse practitioners on the Island and elsewhere, but that an extensive recruiting drive will take place.
