SARM calls for more Nurse Practitioners in Sask. rural communities

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Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities (SARM) President Ray Orb says while the province has done good work when it comes to recruiting doctors and nurses, there is room for improvement, particularly when it comes to Nurse Practitioners (NP).

Living in Cupar, around an hour’s drive from Regina, Orb said he has experienced the shortage of NPs firsthand.

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“In this area they’ve had Nurse Practitioners — I believe they had two — but just recently they lost both of them because I guess they’re not willing to drive back and forth and they’re not willing to stay out here,” he said, adding NPs are useful in communities that don’t have their own doctors as they can manage most of their patients needs and refer them to doctors and specialists when appropriate.

“We’re hearing there are a lot of communities out in the rural (communities) that are either short or don’t have their own NPs,” Orb said.

That’s why SARM is urging the province to reinstate the Grow Your Own Nurse Practitioner Program. Orb said the recruitment strategy — which was launched in 2014 to encourage NPs to work in communities with a population of 10,000 people or less — was successful.

The program had four initiatives that were phased in over two years: Full-time NP training for Registered Nurses (RNs) while receiving wages and benefits on a five-year return-of-service agreement; forming a team of NPs to provide temporary itinerant services in communities without NP services; moving vacant nursing positions within health regions to communities that need NPs; and the eligibility for NPs to receive incentive grants of up to $40,000 over five years for practising in hard-to-recruit locations.

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“If this program were to come back, I think it’d actually help the province, it’d help our rural residents, too, because you’d have NPs right there,” Orb said. “If that were the case you might be able to open up an emergency centre. I know it takes more than just an NP to have an emergency centre, but it’s a start.”

Orb said SARM plans to continue the discussion around rural health care with MLAs during the bear pit session at the association’s annual convention, to be held March 13-15 in Regina.

Nurse Practitioners on staff at reopened Wolseley ER

Deputy Reeve of the Rural Municipality of Wolseley, Brock Linnell, said reinstating the Grow Your Own Nurse Practitioner Program would be a positive thing, as it can be a struggle to draw health care staff to rural areas.

After 12 years of “on-and-off” closures at the emergency room in Wolseley, and four years of being closed entirely, it reopened on Feb. 26.

Linnell said the health care system was beginning to hit a low point in Wolseley, with community members having to go to the city to get health care. After the long reopening process, he said it is positive to be “moving in the right direction.”

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“When you don’t know if it’s open or not open then it becomes more difficult to access emergency services, which you have to from time to time,” he said.

While there is always some skepticism about how long Wolseley’s ER will manage to stay open, Linnell said things seem more promising this time because of the government’s recruitment efforts.

“At the moment they have staff lined up to be fully operational,” he said, adding there is a mix of new RNs and NPs, and openings for Licensed Practical Nurses (LPN).

The rest of the hospital remains closed as it undergoes renovations. Linnell said a new heating, venting, and air conditioning (HVAC) system is being installed and a tender was recently awarded to redo the windows. Renovations are expected to be completed in the summer.

A written response from the Ministry of Health said it has made significant investments to grow the province’s human health care resources over the past year, including increasing the number of NPs.

What does the Sask. government do to support NPs?

According to the Ministry of Health, it provides grant funding to support the recruitment and retention of NPs, including a relocation grant and a bursary.

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The Nurse Practitioner Relocation Grant for licensed primary care NPs who are willing to relocate to rural or northern communities with a population of 10,000 or less for can be up to $40,000 over five years. Clinical Placement Bursaries worth $2000 give financial support to students in their final clinical placement for hard-to-recruit occupations, and students must commit to working in a rural area for one year.

The Rural and Remote Recruitment Incentive offers up to $50,000 over three years to nurses and other health care employees in hard-to-recruit positions in rural and remote areas, and urban centres that support rural and remote areas.

The Saskatchewan Student Loan Forgiveness for Nurses and Nurse Practitioners Program provides RNs, Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs), NPs and LPNs in smaller communities with up to $4,000 per year to a maximum of $20,000 over five years.

According to the Ministry of Health, there were 38 NP vacancies in communities across the province with the SHA as of Sept. 26, 2023 — 24 of which were in rural or remote communities.

Treynoldson@postmedia.com

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