Crisis management

Rotary Club of Wellington proposes nurse practitioner clinic

As many as 5,000 County residents may not have a family physician in Prince Edward County. The Rotary Club in Wellington wants to help solve this problem. It is proposing a nurse practitioner clinic in Wellington. Last week the Club went to Shire Hall to enlist Council’s support.

Belleville currently has a nurse practitioner clinic serving that community. The Wellington Rotary Club intends to form a satellite clinic to the Belleville nurse practitioner clinic to serve County residents.

Wellington Rotary spokesperson David MacKinnon explained that they propose to use nurse practitioners as collaborators with physicians, not as competitors to them.

“The Prince Edward County Family Health Team has been a leader in this respect; it currently has three nurse practitioners on staff,” said MacKinnon. “Our model differs from the Family Health Team, however, because we recognize that nurse practitioners, with their own independent scope of practise, can operate in parallel with family physicians.”

He noted the urgency of the challenge.

“Our submission will need to be completed very soon so that we can be at the front of the line when the call for proposals is made,” said MacKinnon. “We are working to very aggressive deadlines to make this possible.”

The Rotary Club of Wellington has provided seed funding to the Belleville nurse practitioner clinic to generate a plan for the satellite clinic in Wellington. An independent contractor has been hired to prepare the submission to the province. According to MacKinnon, there is space at the existing Sandbanks Medical Clinic at the entrance of Wellington on the Lake, which could house two nurse practitioners and an additional nurse. Discussions have been held with the current owners of this facility, including Dr. Blair Scrivens. Each is supportive of the plan.

“We think this is an emergency that threatens the health and safety of County residents,” said MacKinnon. He added that due to an unusual combination of moves and planned retirements and the passing of a busy physician, the Club now estimates that within a year-and-a- half, there could be as many as 9,000 orphan patients—residents not rostered with a primary care physician in the County.

Nurse practitioners are paid directly by the province, and MacKinnon noted that financial contributions from the municipality are expected to be modest.

“In the unlikely event that some municipal funds are needed, we hope that the proposed satellite clinic would be treated by the municipality in the same way it treats physician recruitment efforts. They are different approaches to the same problem,” said MacKinnon.

He also stated that nurse practitioners tend to be around 40 per cent more cost-effective. Further, they are easier to recruit than doctors as the training program takes only two years as opposed to several years in medical school and residency.

Rotary Club of Wellington President Ken Robertson sees this as part of the answer to a growing problem—one that he sees as practical and cost-effective.

“A nurse practitioner in Belleville handles approximately 900 patients,” said Robertson. “In our view, the deployment of two nurse practitioners would only be the beginning of a solution to a long-term problem. But if our two nurse practitioners are able to pick up 1,800 patients that are currently orphans in this province, that would be a good beginning,” he said.

Mayor Steve Ferguson offered his support to the proposal, but hastened to emphasize that Council is actively working toward solutions and not waiting for others to solve the problem.

“I will say that advocacy concerning this issue is and has been ongoing for quite some time, concerning the particular need for Prince Edward County, either because of doctors retiring and our disproportionately large seniors population,” said Ferguson. “It’s not like we haven’t been hammering as best we can, and I certainly will be continuing to do that with the help of Council.”

Council received the deputation and directed staff to prepare a report on how to best support the initiative, including funding, provincial advocacy and public communications once the Rotary Club’s study is complete.