Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Tony Wakeham (MHA for Stephenville-Port au Port) questions why the Liberal Government continues to ignore the important role of Nurse Practitioners and the financial burden placed on many individuals who have to pay out of pocket to access these services.
Recent changes were made to expand the scope of practice for pharmacists and to provide coverage to allow any resident to access the expanded services at no cost.
“While the changes to expand the scope of practice for pharmacists are positive steps in improving access, I do not understand why Nurse Practitioner services are still not covered. Patients continue to have to take out their credit cards to pay for the care provided by Nurse Practitioners”, said Wakeham.
Wakeham has been a strong advocate for many years that no one in our province should have to pay out of pocket to access primary care providers, like nurse practitioners.
Wakeham said “With these recent changes, this Liberal Government has set the precedent to cover the cost to access services provided by one health care provider but not another group. I believe that ALL health care providers should be working at their full scope of practice and that no one should have to pay to access these services. Unfortunately, Nurse Practitioners are being left out. Treating health care providers differently like this is hard to justify.
Wakeham said, “Any government I lead will do the right thing to improve health care access for people throughout our province, making sure health care is there when people NEED it – with EVERY person having access to a primary care provider, without an admission fee they can’t afford.
