People are 'coming in and begging for us to take them as patients'
The Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic says it could ease pressure on Sudbury's health-care system but needs provincial funding
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Nurse practitioners could help ease the burden on Greater Sudbury’s health care system — if only the province better supported NP clinics, say advocates.
The Capreol Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic hasn’t received any operational funding increase since it opened its doors in 2012, according to the clinic’s executive director, Amanda Rainville, who also works as a nurse practitioner there.
“We actually had a budget decrease in 2019 of $44,000 and since 2020, none of our staff have had any increases in their wages,” said Rainville.
There are no family physicians or walk-in clinics in Capreol. The closest family physician is located in Hanmer and the doctor there, Dr Nicole Desmarais, is already at full capacity. In fact, Greater Sudbury is in need of 33 family doctors, according to HealthForceOntario, Ontario Health’s recruitment agency that posts job openings for physicians across the province.
The Capreol NP-led team, consisting of nurse practitioners, registered and registered practical nurses, a social worker and a dietitian, serves 3,200 patients in the community and surrounding area. Its patients are predominantly seniors living with multiple comorbidities.
Rainville said that even though the clinic cannot accept more patients, there is a waiting list of at least 600 people.
To be able to take in those patients and more, she said the clinic needs about $350,000 to hire four more employees: two more nurse practitioners, one social worker, one registered practical nurse and another administrative staff member.
“We’re getting burnt out and it’s frustrating for our admin staff because patients are coming in and begging for us to take them as patients, but we don’t have the capacity to do so,” said Rainville. “It’s difficult to see the patients we have right now because they are quite complex; so we can’t take on new ones. And it’s difficult to retain staff when we haven’t had any increases in the last four years and other sectors are paying much higher — at least 15 to 30 per cent higher than what we can pay with our funding.”
Rainville said the clinic has applied for funding as part of the province’s effort to better connect patients to primary care but has not received a response.
“We are hopeful but not optimistic that we will be one of the clinics that will be funded,” said Rainville.
Last week, Health Ontario announced it was investing $110 million to help connect Ontarians to primary care teams. Included in the announcement was a promise to add more than 400 primary care providers as part of 78 new and expanded interprofessional primary care teams, as well as an additional $20 million to provide a “boost” to all existing primary care teams to help them meet increased operational costs.
The Capreol clinic was not included in the initial allotment of funds.
The Sudbury Star contacted Ontario Health to ask what the recent funding announcement meant for Greater Sudbury residents without access to primary care.
Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson for the Minister of Health, indicated more details would be provided in the future.
“Details regarding our government’s historic expansion of interdisciplinary primary care teams will be available in the coming weeks,” she said in an email. “As stated in the news release, this expansion in addition to the changes our government has made to add more health care workers to our workforce, including new undergraduate and residency seats at NOSM, with 60% of new seats reserved specifically for family medicine, will ensure 98% of Ontarians have a primary care provider over the next several years– the current percentage is 90%, the highest in Canada.”
Regarding nurse practitioner clinics broadly, she said the province has invested nearly $50 million each year to connect hundreds of thousands of Ontarians to primary care through 25 nurse practitioner-led clinics across the province. “Ontario is the first jurisdiction in Canada to adopt this model,” she said.
Nickel Belt MPP France Gelinas, who is also the NDP’s health critic, reiterated her party’s stance that the province is funnelling public dollars into private health care.
“At the 40,000-feet level, we have a government that is really, really trying hard to bring private health care into Ontario,” said Gelinas. “If enough people are not having the public system meet their needs, then they come to a point and say they are Ok with the privatization of health care, they don’t want to wait three years for hip surgery or wait 18 months for their child to see a mental health provider, etc.”
Gelinas said there is “untapped opportunity” in Capreol and rural Northern communities.
“I have 40,000 people in Nickel Belt who do not have access to primary care,” she said. Yet “we have a nurse-practitioner clinic in Capreol that is able to recruit and has nurse practitioners underemployed right now, who would love to take on another 1,000 patients and give them access to primary care.”
Gelinas said she’s not suggesting a multi-million-dollar solution. “We are talking hundreds of thousands of dollars (that) would make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of people who would gain access to a primary care provider …” she said.
“It just breaks my heart that we have a government that is so callously putting people’s health and lives at risk.”
The Local Journalism Initiative is made possible through funding from the federal government.
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