Action Alert: Fund nurse practitioners in primary care, premier!

One in three people in Ontario do not have timely access to care when they are sick. Other evidence of the acute and growing primary care crisis in Ontario:

• 2.3 million Ontarians do not have access to a regular primary care provider.
• In 2022, 1.7 million Ontarians had a family doctor older than 65 – nearing retirement – meaning that one in four may not have a family doctor by 2026.

There’s a solution: the publicly-funded nurse practitioner (NP). Join us! Call on Premier Ford and Minister Jones to fund NPs to provide primary care in Ontario, without user fees.

Recently, our government announced funding for 53 new team-based primary care clinics and the expansion of 25 existing ones. RNAO applauds this move. Yet, these publicly-funded clinics will cover only 300,000 people – and at least 2 million will remain without regular access to primary care.

More than 100 team-based primary care proposals are still awaiting funding, and hundreds of NPs are eager to provide primary care to Ontarians. NPs – advanced practice nurses with graduate clinical education and the legal authority to diagnose and treat ailments – have been providing high-quality, cost-effective primary care for decades.

RNAO urges Premier Ford and Minister Jones to fund additional team-based primary care clinics and also to fund independent NP practice, without user fees. This is urgently needed to alleviate the doctor shortage, and prevent:

• user-fees and for-profit primary care
• higher use of emergency departments,
• increased chronic illnesses, and
• higher health-system costs.

Join us! Urge Premier Ford and Minister Jones to fund NPs to provide primary care for Ontarians – without user fees.