THUNDER BAY —Lakehead University’s School of Nursing will create five new primary care nurse practitioner education spots this year thanks to funding announced by the province.
The province announced this week it is investing $30 million to expand the primary care workforce across Ontario, including a $1.3-million infusion in Thunder Bay for nurse practitioner education and nurse “upskilling” in things like cancer screening and chronic disease management.
“This new funding will upskill over 1,400 registered nurses for primary care, create 170 primary care nurse practitioner education seats, and add up to 150 physician assistant education seats as part of the government’s $2.1-billion Primary Care Action Plan to connect everyone in Ontario to primary care by 2029,” a news release from Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland’s office stated.
The five additional Lakehead admissions for the nurse practitioner program will facilitate easier access to health care in the region, according to the release.
“We’re so excited about this,” Kristen Jones-Bonofiglio, the School of Nursing’s director, said Wednesday in an interview.
“It’s an opportunity to build capacity for RNs to work to full scope of practice in primary care, which will help physicians and nurse practitioners to be able to give some of their work to the RNs and really make sure that everybody is making their own contribution towards making sure that primary care is running hopefully as efficiently as possible and really meeting patient needs.”
She said the new funding “is for three years, and then we’ll see what comes from that.
“But again, that opportunity to build capacity, I think is really incredible.”
The Lakehead nursing school is “building capacity on a number of levels” and has forged productive partnerships with Georgian College and Confederation College, she said.
“By expanding education seats and investing in new training opportunities at Lakehead University, our government is helping to grow a stronger local workforce that can meet the needs of our communities,” Holland said in the news release.
