Ontario’s health minister shut down one avenue of publicly funding all nurse practitioners Wednesday, as the province missed a federal deadline for ensuring their medically necessary services are covered.
The federal government gave provinces and territories until April 1 to ensure they are funding nurse practitioner services equivalent to what doctors provide, though penalties for noncompliance won’t kick in until April 2027.
Ontario does not yet have a plan in place, despite Health Minister Sylvia Jones pushing the federal government years ago to close what she called a “loophole” in the Canada Health Act that allowed nurse practitioners to set up subscription-fee-based clinics outside the public system.