Nurses launch campaign to highlight Nurse Practitioner role

What can a nurse practitioner do for you? The Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario (RNAO) and the Nurse Practitioners’ Association of Ontario (NPAO) has launched a public awareness campaign to answer that question and inform people about this most valuable health-care role.

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses with advanced education and legislative authority, who help you keep healthy, diagnose and treat common illnesses and injuries, prescribe medications, and order lab tests, x-rays and other diagnostic tests. In the 11 years the role has been legally recognized in Ontario, nurse practitioners have expanded their reach and work in almost every sector of the health-care system from hospitals and community clinics to long-term care facilities and family health teams.

The campaign will feature posters on the Toronto Transit Commission’s subways, GO Transit, and in transit shelters and malls in dozens of communities right across the province. In addition to educating people about the role in general, the campaign also focuses on towns and cities where patients do not have access to a primary care provider.

You can download PDF versions of the NP campaign posters by clicking the links below. Both posters will appear across Ontario during Nursing Week.

“This is a role we are extremely proud of and yet, many people still aren’t aware of the knowledge and skills of nurse practitioners (NPs). That’s why we are launching this campaign so that people across Ontario will have more information about NPs and the part they can play in their health care.”

- RNAO President Wendy Fucile

“NPs are really addressing many challenges facing our health-care system. They are reducing wait times in emergency departments, increasing access to primary health care in family health teams, community health centres, and NP-led clinics, and reducing transfers of elderly residents from long-term care facilities to hospitals. They are bringing their knowledge and leadership to health-care teams and making sure people get the care they need and deserve.”

NPAO President Tina Hurlock-Chorostecki:

“The McGuinty government has announced that 25 additional NP-Led Clinics will open in Ontario shortly. This will allow people to immediately have access to meet their health care needs, and that’s why this campaign is so important. We are saying to the public: ‘Call your MPP to get an NP.’”

RNAO Executive Director Doris Grinspun: