Sudbury nurse practitioner clinics taking on 500+ new patients

Up to 600 orphanpatients in Sudbury could soon have a primary care provider to look after their health care needs.

The Sudbury District Nurse PractitionerClinics is accepting new patients at its sites on Riverside Drive and on Main Street in Lively.

With the Ministry of Health thereisn't away to track patients who may have moved on, so about a year ago they began to review the roster of patientssays clinic director Jennifer Clement.

"We hadn't seen a lot of our patients in years, so we went through our list, found out that some people had moved or some people actually had changed providers. It opens up some spots in our offices," Clement says.

There are five nurse practitioners who can take on an additional500 to600 new patients in total.

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The nurse practitioner clinic on Riverside Drivein Sudbury opened more thanten years ago. It was the first one in the province. There are now 24 similar clinics across Ontario.

Clement says the whole premise behind creating the clinics was to help orphanpatients, that is those who didn't have a family doctor.

She's hoping this recent intake will not only help make a dent in the remaining number of patients in that situation, but also address other health care pressures.

"We are hoping that we'll help decrease the work of the emergency room and the walk in clinics."

'Making a difference in health care'

Being around for more than a decade, Clement says some people still don't understand the role of a nurse practitioner.

A nurse practitioner is a registered nurse who is trained to provide primary health care to patients. They perform similar duties as afamily physician.

"Unfortunately,sometimes [the patients] feel that we're a stepping stone to getting into a physician's office," Clement says.

"We've been going out into the community and doing some education. [Nurse practitioners]are unknown.Unfortunately, we're an unknown entity, so we're doing a lot ofeducation," Clement says."We're getting there."

"When you listen to the stories of the staff, of the patients,we really see that we're making a difference in health care."