A nurse-run clinic is Quebec’s latest attempt to unclog ERs | 24CA News
As a nurse practitioner in Montreal, Nadine Belony says she has extra independence relating to treating her sufferers, be it decoding diagnostic checks, prescribing drugs or referring them to a specialist.
“We really have the competence to take charge of our patients,” she stated.
But till now, she has all the time labored alongside medical doctors.
She will probably be among the many nurse practitioners working at a brand new clinic within the metropolis’s east finish, providing care to sufferers whose illnesses do not require an emergency room go to.
The clinic is opening Thursday on the CLSC Olivier-Guimond on Sherbrooke Street E., close to the nook of Louis-Veuillot Street.
Lina Spagnolo, director of nursing on the CIUSSS de l’Est-de-l’Île-de-Montréal, says it is a first for Quebec — however not for Canada or different components of the world.
The clinic is an added service for the inhabitants and can assist relieve strain on the health-care community, she defined.
“You see the overcrowding that we are experiencing,” stated Spagnolo. “The numbers are very high this week.”
“Ultimately, it’s to relieve pressure on our ER departments, relieve our teams also in our ER departments who are completely overworked.”
But it isn’t a walk-in clinic, and the hours are restricted for now with only some nurse practitioners like Belony serving to out — working voluntary additional time hours so the brand new service can get off the bottom.
Patients will should be referred by triage nurses from the emergency rooms at close by Maisonneuve-Rosemont and Santa Cabrini hospitals. Patients might also be referred by 811, the province’s well being hotline.
Patients will probably be referred to the clinic when they don’t seem to be in essential situation and do not want fast, pressing care, Spagnolo stated.
Nurse practitioners will be capable of supply providers equivalent to prescribing drugs, performing some medical remedies, decoding diagnostic checks and different non-urgent providers.
The purpose is to have three full-time nurse practitioners after the vacations and to finally have the clinic open 12 hours a day — from 8 a.m. to eight p.m. — in the course of the week and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the weekends.
There will probably be nursing assistants on web site and clerical workers, who will greet sufferers and handle information.
“It’s a model that will evolve,” Spagnolo stated.
Other nurse practitioner clinics are slated to open in Montreal, together with on the Verdun CLSC and Notre-Dame hospital.
Quebec Health Minister Christian Dubé introduced the clinics’ opening in early November because the province’s short-staffed health-care system was already reaching a breaking level beneath the burden of so many sufferers.
At the time of the announcement, Dr. Élyse Berger-Pelletier, who’s a part of the province’s disaster crew shaped to sort out overcrowding in ERs, stated the transfer would assist pressing care groups by directing sufferers who don’t have a household physician to different providers.
About half of the some 10,000 Quebecers who go to ERs day by day may very well be going elsewhere, in keeping with Dubé.
The federation of normal practitioners of Quebec (FMOQ) says Quebec is brief 1,000 household medical doctors, whereas about 2,500 emergency medical doctors are additionally at the moment working in household medication.
