THUNDER BAY -- The new president of the Nurse Practitioner Association of Ontario plans to bring a strong, northern voice to the organization.
Tannice Fletcher-Stackhouse, a nurse practitioner in primary health care at the NorWest Community Health Centres in Thunder Bay, is the latest president of the NPAO, the first from Northwestern Ontario.
“I’m very honoured to be the first from Northwestern Ontario,” said Fletcher-Stackhouse, adding the region has the smallest amount of members in the association that represents more than 1,500 nurse practitioners throughout Ontario.
“We have a very unique NP practice base where NPs in our region, because of lack of resources and being not close to larger communities, we have to be quite resourceful in how we provide care for our patients,” she said.
Other issues Fletcher-Stackhouse would like to focus on during her one-year term are barriers to primary health care and hospital care for patients as well as the recruitment and retention of health-care workers and the reduction of wait times.
But she also wants to raise awareness about the role of nurse practitioners in general.
“We can diagnose. We can treat, order tests, prescribe. We are an added value to any health care system,” said Fletcher-Stackhouse.
“NPs have really increased access to health care for patients.”
