Health-care workers to get broader powers

Ontario is about to move ahead with plans to allow pharmacists, nurse practitioners and other health-care professionals to provide some services now performed by doctors, Premier Dalton McGuinty says.

Pharmacists would, for instance, be able to extend prescription refills, one of a series of moves aimed at easing long waits for health care, said McGuinty.

The necessary legislative changes will be made "very soon," he said.

"Our government plans to better utilize your skills and maximize your contributions," McGuinty told the annual general meeting of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario in Markham. "Families seeking health care will experience the difference."

The premier went on to give examples of how the changes should help shorten wait times and enhance access to care.

"Instead of waiting in the emergency room to see a physician, you would have your fracture set by a nurse practitioner, who is qualified to do it ... and you'll be on your way home," he said. "People needing a prescription refill would be able to make one trip to a pharmacist instead of two trips: one to the doctor and then one to the pharmacist."

And if a patient has an injured knee, a physiotherapist could order an X-ray, McGuinty said.

About 11 regulated health professionals will have expanded scopes of practice, including physiotherapists, dietitians, respiratory therapists, midwives and dentists, Health Minister David Caplan told the Star, adding the changes are "all about patient access to health care."

"It is about getting care sooner and faster," Caplan said in an interview. "A lot of this to me seems very common sense."

Last November, the Ontario Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council made a number of recommendations in a report to the health ministry supporting many of these changes.

But when that report was released last fall, parts of it, including its suggestion on expanding the roles of pharmacists, drew the ire of the Ontario Medical Association, which argued the practice would not be safe.

But Dennis Darby, head of the Ontario Pharmacists' Association, said yesterday that a prescribing pharmacist could take the pressure off emergency rooms and doctors' offices. He welcomed the news that legislation is on its way.

"It is all in the name of trying to take some of the pressure off an overburdened health system," Darby said.