I rise today to speak about the important work that nurse practitioners do, serving patients in every corner of our province, and why we need this government to fund more nurse practitioner positions. At a time when many family physicians are retiring, patients across Ontario lose access to primary care, leaving them dependent on walk-in clinics and emergency departments. Meanwhile, Aboriginal health access centres, community health centres and nurse practitioner-led clinics all have nurse practitioners who want to be hired and who are available, but they have no money to hire them. These nurse practitioners can assess, they can treat, and they can advise patients with complex medical conditions who otherwise end up in our crowded emergency rooms.

Unfortunately, this government refuses to modernize their antiquated funding model so nurse practitioners can be hired to provide their excellent services to more patients.

For example, an executive director in a nurse practitioner-led clinic has to be a nurse practitioner, but she still has to carry an 800-patient-load roster and her administrative duty in this clinic.

In fact, this funding model is so rigid that the government claims that they are still working on the paperwork to provide nurses working in these clinics with the retention bonus that was promised nine months ago.

If this government wants to improve access to health care services to thousands of people across Ontario, invest in nurse practitioner positions. It will pay off.

I would like to thank my incredibly talented assistant from my riding of Nickel Belt, Adele Fawcett, who is here to witness question period this morning. Welcome to Queen’s Park.

I’m hoping, Speaker, that the Minister of Health can answer.

Everyone but members of this government agree that we are witnessing an undeniable and unprecedented health human resources crisis. Ontario hospitals are falling further behind. Nurse vacancies in Ontario have increased by 300% since March of 2020. The government says that they’ve brought thousands of new nurses, but where are they? We are currently at a 14.5% turnover rate among hospital nurses. It’s clear that the government’s plan, their so-called retention bonuses, have done very little to keep workers in the field.

Will the minister repeal Bill 124 and show some respect to our burnt-out health care workers?