Swift Current medical clinic benefits from skills of nurse practitioner
A medical clinic in Swift Current is benefitting from a provincial government initiative to improve access to health care through the use of nurse practitioners in different settings.
Candace Blake has been working as a nurse practitioner at the Southwest Medi-centre since late January and she has already provided care to a large number of patients.
Swift Current MLA and Minister of Health Everett Hindley visited the clinic on April 4 for a media event to highlight Blake’s presence and the government’s plan to expand the use of nurse practitioners across the province.
“Nurse practitioners aren’t interchangeable with family physicians, but there’s a number of tasks that they can do and roles that they can perform for a variety of patients,” Hindley said.
The creation of a nurse practitioner position at Southwest Medi-centre took place after a long-time family physician at the clinic closed his practice at the end of 2023.
He had a large practice and it left a significant number of people without a family physician, thereby becoming what is referred to as unattached patients.
Hindley and his ministry team had some conversations with the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA), which resulted in the allocation of pilot project funding from the 2023-24 provincial budget to create a nurse practitioner position at Southwest Medi-centre. The funding of this position is also included in the provincial budget for 2024-25 and it will become annualized.
Hindley noted that the provincial government has been trying since last year to better utilize health care professionals across the province, including nurse practitioners. The intention is to improve health care access and to ensure that care is offered by the appropriate health care provider.
“Not everybody needs to necessarily see a family doctor,” he said. “Not everybody needs to necessarily go to emergency
department. Some people can be helped by a family doctor. Some can be helped by a nurse practitioner or perhaps a pharmacist, and I think there’s an opportunity to do that.”
The expanded use of nurse practitioners in the health-care system includes a new pilot project for independently operated, publicly funded nurse practitioner clinics in Warman and Martensville. Hindley noted that the 2024-25 provincial budget also included an announcement of a few more nurse practitioner-led clinics in the province, of which the locations must still be determined, as well as an additional 25 nurse practitioner positions across Saskatchewan.
“We really think that there’s an opportunity to be better engaging and better utilizing the nurse practitioner resources we have in Saskatchewan,” he said.
He has received feedback from the Saskatchewan Association of Nurse Practitioners about the need to improve the utilization of nurse practitioners in communities.
“They tell me that there are areas in the
province where they have nurse practitioners who are living in communities, but perhaps don’t have a position at all or have a part-time position,” he said. “So we’re trying to identify where can we provide funding to create some permanent full-time positions in these communities for nurse practitioners to give patients another access point to health care.”
Blake has been a nurse practitioner for nine years and she is an experienced health care professional. She obtained a nursing degree at the University of Saskatchewan in 2007 and thereafter completed the Master of Nursing – Nurse Practitioner program at the same university in 2015.
She has been a Swift Current resident for 17 years and her work experience includes nursing positions in different departments at the Cypress Regional Hospital. She previously worked as a nurse practitioner in Cabri, Kyle and Mankota.
Since the pandemic she has been working on a casual basis as a nurse practitioner at the hospital in Swift Current.
She has also been commuting to Moose Jaw for additional hours to meet the requirement of 900 practice hours every three years to maintain her license.
She appreciates the opportunity to now work full-time as a nurse practitioner in the community where she lives.
“Because of my background and being from the area, when this opportunity presented itself for me to work in my community without a commute, I felt I could be valuable and a good team member, as most people have known me in the practice,” she said. “I also have practiced greatly in the area with the physicians and the pharmacists and other interdisciplinary team members for a number of years.”
Her general scope of work at Southwest Medi-centre remains the same as before. The big difference is that she previously worked out of a SHA facility, but now she is a SHA employee working out of a fee-for-service physicians clinic.
“So overall, my work is the same,” she said. “I get to provide a variety of services to people of all ages. I get to do some specialty work, which is close to my heart, in palliative care, as well as chronic disease management.”
Blake emphasized that her work and scope of practice might appear to be similar to that of a family physician, but it is not the case.
“Our education is different and how we interact with team members,” she said. “We work very collaboratively. So the best person to do the job is doing it.”
She added that she will always be a proud registered nurse, because that was what she learned to do first, and she approaches primary health care from a nursing perspective.
“Currently what we do in the clinic is if somebody is in need of a provider and was a member of the clinic, I can see them,” she said. “And if I am not the best fit for them, I can refer them to one of my colleagues who is a physician or within the scope of a nurse practitioner, we’re very much autonomous and independent and can decide if they maybe require specialist care or another team member to take over.”