Nurse practitioners not always compensated for providing medical assistance in dying

Ministry of Health and Long Term Care does not provide fee-for-service the way it does for physicians

CBC News

Angela Gemmill

The Nurse Practitioners Association of Ontario says some of its members are helping to provide their patients with medically assisted deaths without compensation.

It wasn’t until April of 2017 that nurse practitioners (NPs) in Ontario could prescribe the controlled substances used for medical assistance in dying (MAID).

Since then about 40 NPs across the province have provided either patient assessments or the procedure itself.

A patient must be assessed by two independent health care providers. This can be either a physician or a nurse practitioner. The procedure is the same regardless of who provides it.

One nurse practitioner in Sudbury, Ont. says it’s important for her to provide support to patients who want to take this step. She admits that medical assistance in dying is rather limited in Sudbury, in that not a lot of physicians or nurse practitioners are willing to provide it for patients. . . [Full text]

 

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