WORSLEY, Alta. – Governments should hire nurse practitioners, not doctors, to work in small communities, says the chair of a northern Alberta health organization.
“There is a 20 to 30 percent saving realized when using nurse practitioners at the front line,” said Andy Hudak, chair of the Worsley and District Health Promotion Society.
Members of the society are trying to put a figure to the extra cost to patients and the health system when patients are forced to drive an extra 100 kilometres to the nearest doctor when there is no nurse practitioner.
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“We saw these girls as saving the system money, not costing them money.”
It’s all part of a process to lobby the Mistihia Regional Health Authority to hire a second nurse practitioner for the isolated community near the British Columbia border.
There were two nurse practitioners at the Worsley Health Centre until 1993. When one nurse retired she was never replaced. Rosemary MacDonald works four days a week at the centre, but admits it’s rare she only works the scheduled hours.
Jane Manning, spokesperson for the Mistihia Regional Health Authority in Grande Prairie, said there are no plans to hire nurse practitioners for the other areas of the region. The goal is to hire doctors for the rural communities in the RHA’s area.
“We are actively pursuing physicians into our rural communities. Our objective is to recruit physicians,” said Manning.
Expansion uncertain
She said they are “pleased with the way the Worsley Health Centre operates” but can’t speculate if the nursing role will be expanded.
The Worsley Health Centre serves about 2,000 people. A survey of the centre in March and May 1996 showed about 560 patients came to the centre in those two months.
During the last four years about 2,000 nurses have been laid off across the province due to budget cuts. Hudak questions the logic of cutting nurses who want to work while trying to attract doctors to rural areas.
“I don’t think we should expect to be putting hours in like Rosemary when you’ve laid off 2,000 nurses. Why couldn’t they recruit a percentage of those nurses especially when they will cut back on the time patients spend in the hospital?”
It is important to have some medical facilities, especially because of the busy oil and gas industry in many remote areas, said Hudak.
He cited one example where MacDonald drove more than an hour over barely passable roads to a oilfield worker who had a heart attack. She stabilized him before a helicopter picked up the patient.
“She saved his bacon,” said Hudak.
Other workers with chemicals splashed in their faces have been rushed into the clinic for help.
“Can you image them driving another 100 kilometres?
“There’s no end of the emergency cases let alone the everyday.”
