SACPA session focuses on primary health care crisis

By Alejandra Pulido-Guzman - Lethbridge Herald on November 8, 2024.

LETHBRIDGE HERALDapulido@lethbridgeherald.com

The Southern Alberta Council on Public Affairs hosted a virtual presentation Thursday about the Primary Care access crisis in the province and integrating nurse practitioners.

Christiane Eitzenberger, vice president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Alberta, spoke during the session about how nurse practitioners can be part of the solution to the health care crisis Alberta is going through.

“As most of you are aware, there is a crisis in Alberta and also beyond Alberta. There’s approximately 800,000 Albertans without a primary care provider. This is impacted further by a growing population,” said Eitzenberger.

She said the crisis is in part because an increasing numbers of physicians have chosen early retirement with an average age of 52 years old, or have decided to leave the province.

“This is also complicated because we’re not educating enough primary care providers to follow in the footsteps of the ones that are retiring and leaving,” said Eitzenberger.

 She added that physicians cannot do this work alone and the nurse practitioners are the only other regulated healthcare professionals that are able to increase access to primary care services.

 “In Alberta, almost 60 per cent of patients have difficulty accessing primary care. That is a huge number and this is very similar whether it’s rural or urban,” said Eitzenberger.

She said that in addition to this, they know Albertans wait quite a bit to get care after hours, and this results in increased visits to emergency departments, which is a very expensive way of providing care.

 “Canada as a whole is not doing great, approximately 60 per cent of patients utilize emergency care department due to the barrier to accessing Primary Care. When we look at the overall healthcare workforce, the one that’s growing the fastest is actually the nurse practitioners,” said Eitzenberger.

 She said between 2019 and 2020 there was an 8.2 per cent growth and in addition, more nurses would like to become nurse practitioners and they are currently exceeding the students they can accept at the current universities in Alberta.

Eitzenberger said nurse practitioners are versatile, experienced clinicians with extensive clinical training and graduate-level specialization. Nurse Practitioners are completely independent health professionals and require no outside supervision of their practice. They bring a wealth of knowledge to provide high-quality care in a variety of settings.

She added that the Government of Alberta’s new funding model and commitment to nurse practitioners means more than 50 will join the primary care workforce this year.

“Nurse practitioners can provide direct patient care which can include the diagnosing and also managing of the diseases and illnesses. They can prescribe medication, order and interpret tests and they can refer patients to specialists if needed,” said Eitzenberger.

She said in Alberta, there are under 1,000 nurse practitioners and they are hoping to improve and grow that number in order to improve access to primary care for Albertans.

 “In addition, most of the nurse practitioners are female and we know females prefer females as a healthcare provider. Nurse practitioners may be able to support this need as well,” said Eitzenberger.