Labrador and Newfoundland are hiring a few of physician assistants for a three-year pilot project that’s expected to reduce doctors’ workloads and improve access to health care.
In Manitoba a physician assistant Kathleen Abreo, who was wanting to move to the province before COVID-19 struck, says the project may have opportunities for her and her husband, who was a hospitalist Dr. Travis Barron who was originally from Torbay.
`Before the pandemic we were looking at it very seriously but it didn’t work out for us since I couldn’t work as a PA in Newfoundland and Labrador but now, we are hoping to start on,’ said Abreo.
She also says that physician assistants can be a part of the solution to the province’s health-care crisis. Many of the residents don’t have family doctors and wait-lists for surgeries have grown long.
Physician assistants are clinicians who work with doctors but don’t have an independent license, she explained, doctors can offer extended services and increase access to health care.
Abreo says, In other parts of Canada, PAs work in many areas of medicine, from family doctor offices to emergency rooms. Our scope is a sort of negotiated autonomy, whatever our supervising physician is comfortable letting us do. This includes taking medical histories, doing physical exams and minor procedures. In surgery Physician assistants can be the first assistant and can work in specialist care and offer whatever services the specialist is happy with.
The provincial government is beginning with a small number of physician assistants but a statement sent to CBC News suggests that they expect PAs will have a lot to offer.
The department respects physician assistants as highly skilled health-care providers who could help to strengthen the province’s health-care system, says the statement from the Department of Health and Community Services.
The main aim of the pilot program is to see physician assistants practice medicine in collaboration with physicians working autonomously under the supervision of a licensed doctor to extend physician services and improve patient access to care across Labrador and Newfoundland.
The Health Department says physician assistants in Labrador and Newfoundland will be involved in inpatient care, surgical/trauma assists, hospitalist coverage, orphaned patient report follows up, cancer clinic support, emergency assessments and patient assessments in primary-care clinics.
`Physician assistants who are already working in Ontario, Manitoba Alberta and every Atlantic province except Newfoundland and Labrador. Physician assistants could play an important role to increase access to health care in rural areas of the province,’ says Abreo.
In underserved rural societies, most of the time people don’t have access to inpatient in person services a lot, so they get intermittent virtual care, which is not that great. Adding a PA to a team can increase access to in-person care, and help to prevent worse health issues through services like cancer screening.
