Karen Poste, Manager of Economic Development and Strategic Initiatives for the City of Belleville (File photo: Quinte News).
Belleville has decided that a first step in a bid to recruit nurse practitioners will be to get the provincial government to fund more positions for them.
Earlier this year Councillor Paul Carr had asked for a staff report on the issue of recruiting nurse practitioners to help with the shortage of doctors.
Manager of Economic and Strategic Initiatives Karen Poste says, unlike doctors, the nurses cannot bill the province but must work in provincially supported areas, such as clinics.
Poste canvassed the Ministry of Health and a number of health agencies.
Poste says each nurse practitioner at clinic can care for as many as 800 patients. In Ontario, the province funds 25 nurse practitioner led clinics, one in Belleville.
