A nurse practitioner-led clinic proposed for Orillia is gaining traction.
About a year ago, nurse practitioners Janet Greaves and Cathy Suppa proposed the Twin Lakes nurse practitioner-led clinic for Orillia to help support the thousands of local residents without a family doctor.
“We’ve been garnering lots of support community-wide and at the ministry level," Greaves said.
Earlier this week, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced a new plan to help localize care and shorten wait times. The province will be funneling $30-million into "inter-professional primary care teams," which would include nurse practitioner-led efforts.
“We are ready to go,” Greaves said. “We can be operational in six months instead of revamping something they are struggling with at the Ontario Health Team level with recruiting doctors of medicine.”
Greaves, Suppa, and fellow nurse practitioner Nicole McDonald presented their plan to Ontario Health last Friday.
“The premier is on board,” Greaves said. “The funds will be rolled out, it’s just a matter of how that will happen.”
The clinic, which will be staffed with four nurse practitioners, will be located at 169 Front St. S., also known as The Common Roof. Now, the nurse practitioners are just waiting for the green light. Greaves says she hopes the clinic will be open in six to 10 months from now.
"The need for improved access to primary care is critical. There are physician shortages that have made connecting with a primary care provider impossible for thousands of local residents," she explained.
In the coming year, six physicians who are a part of the Couchiching Ontario Health Team are set to retire, according to Greaves, which could leave approximately 15,000 local people without a primary care provider.
Greaves personally became inspired to open the clinic after her student, Suppa, couldn’t find any available jobs in primary care.
“She ended up going back into the hospital sector where she isn’t really practising primary care,” she explained. "We thought why not create more primary-care positions and help bridge the gaps in primary care access by proposing a nurse practitioner-led clinic?"
Graves says she and her partners want to support the community and are passionate about providing health care.
“We just feel that we can help Orillia solve these gaps,” she said.
The nurse practitioners will be meeting with Simcoe North MP Adam Chambers and Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop on Feb. 27 to hopefully bring the project to fruition.
Dr. Doris Grinspun, the CEO of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario, says the people of Orillia have been waiting "way too long" for a nurse practitioner-led clinic.
"You have patients that are unattached in numbers that are unconscionable," she said. "You have a group of nurse practitioners that is second to none, you've had a proposal on the government's table for almost a year, you have community support, and physicians begging for you. So, what are we waiting for?"
Grinspun says she will be going to Queen's Park on March 2 to advocate for the clinic in Orillia.
"Then is the time they should announce that Orillia proposals will move ahead," she said. "The public in Orillia cannot wait any longer."
Nurse practitioner-led clinics “bridge gaps in the delivery of primary care,” they explained in a recent letter to city council, noting there are 25 of them in the province.
In the letter to council, they said a clinic in Orillia would register 3,200 unattached patients to address chronic diseases, including mental illness and addiction.
