Nurse practitioners could help address primary health-care gaps in Sask., says association president

Saskatchewan's health-care system has been under strain throughout the pandemic and continues to struggle with a shortage of doctors, but there are nurse practitioners who could help ease the situation, according to Tara Schmalenberg.

"We have a lot of nurse practitioners, especially in urban areas that are unemployed, they're still working as registered nurses and maybe working casually," said Schmalenberg, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Nurse Practitioners, which represents about 315 of the licensed professionals.

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who undergo additional training and education, allowing them to diagnose and treat illnesses and prescribe medication. This means they can offer additional support for the primary health-care system, said Schmalenberg, who is a nurse practitioner in Raymore, about 110 km north of Regina.

"The one thing we get told consistently is that there's no money," she said. "There's no money to hire nurse practitioners."

When asked about the situation on Friday, Dale Hunter, a spokesperson for the Saskatchewan Ministry of Health, said there are job openings. 

"There are currently 25 nurse practitioner positions posted on the Health Careers in Saskatchewan website... Of these, 15 (or nearly two-thirds) are full-time positions," he said in a statement. 

Of the 15 full-time positions listed, seven were permanent and just two were in urban centres. 

Schmalenberg said nurse practitioners are frustrated because they can't find stable work and yet the system needs help. She said roughly 20 nurse practitioners trained in primary health care graduate in the province every year. 

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Schmalenberg said more nurse practitioners can help underserved communities. She pointed to Warman and Martensville, two communities just north of Saskatoon, where doctors have been vocal about under-staffing and the inability to meet the needs of residents. 

It's clear more family doctors are needed in communities like these, but adding nurse practitioners as well would help address the problem, she said.

"We need teams of people. We need collaborative care. We need nurse practitioners in those clinics," she said. "If they get more doctors in there, we will just burn them out if we don't support them with other members." 

Schmalenberg said many health-care providers are struggling and pointed to a recent Saskatchewan Medical Association survey of about 400 doctors, which found that 49 per cent of them said their mental health had declined since 2020.

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Hunter, the government spokesperson, said: 'The Ministry of Health is currently working with the Saskatchewan Health Authority to ensure we are optimizing the use of all health-care professions, including nurse practitioners, to ensure we meet staffing needs. A new Crown was announced in the 2022-23 budget to specifically focus on health-care human resources. This will include recruitment and retention of nurse practitioners."

Schmalenberg said establishing more permanent, full-time nurse practitioner positions is the first step in bolstering the primary and preventative health-care systems in Saskatchewan. 

She also thinks more primary care hubs with nurses, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and counsellors collaborating under one roof would be helpful.

"At the end of the day, when we have teams of health-care providers that work together, patients get optimal care and that's really the goal."