Nurse practitioner. Photo © Doug McIntosh, creative commons via Flickr

Nurse practitioner. Photo © Doug McIntosh, creative commons via Flickr

 

The B.C. government sometimes seems to suffer from attention deficit disorder.

Take the case of B.C.’s nurse practitioners. The province began regulating these health-care professionals in 2005. The goal was to increase patient access to health care in an affordable, effective manner.

Many studies show this happens when nurse practitioners are included in the health-care mix.

The government invested in the profession. It supported development of training programs at three B.C. universities. It provided provincial health authorities with money for new nurse-practitioner positions, then salary money for a limited number of new positions until this year.

And then it walked away….

Read the rest of this editorial at the Victoria Times Colonist….