Naturopathic Profession Responds to Ontario Consultation on Prescribing Rights
March 4, 2009
The OAND submission to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care in response to Health Professions Regulatory Advisory Council’s (HPRAC) report Critical Links is here.
The OAND shared the draft submission and collaborated in the development of a joint response with the BDDT-N, CCNM and CAND. The joint response is here.
Responses from members to the OAND survey on HPRAC’s recommendations was invaluable in developing the OAND response. 97% of NDs who responded to the survey supported HPRAC’s recommendations for prescribing rights including basic primary care drugs, and had detailed suggestions on the proposed substances that should be included in the ND formulary.
In our response, the OAND expresses the profession’s support for the broad direction and approach of HPRAC’s continuing efforts to improve the regulation of health professions in Ontario to enhance patient care and better utilize health human resources through improved collaboration.
The OAND also strongly supports HPRAC’s Central Response in support of prescribing authority for NDs. The OAND appreciates HPRAC’s understanding that NDs should be awarded the controlled act of prescribing, dispensing, selling and compounding drugs in order to ensure that NDs can maintain access to restricted natural substances, and play a larger role in improving access to primary care across Ontario. HPRAC recognizes that NDs have the competencies required to prescribe and that this will improve access to care for Ontarians who chose NDs for their primary care. The OAND response does express concern about the absence of an HPRAC recommendation on “crash cart” drugs for NDs and asks that these be included in the prescribing rights for the profession.
Ensuring that all health professions are able to make their full contribution to the health care system will improve patient care, respect patient choice of care provider, improve access to safe and effective care, and improve the effectiveness of inter-professional teams. Effective collaboration, in turn, requires each profession to be able to practise to their full scope of practice, in keeping with their training and competence.
At a time when the provincial government is concerned about access to primary care, the OAND has used this consultation as an opportunity to emphasize that NDs are well poised as primary care providers to increase their contribution to the health care system and patient care, particularly with full access to all therapeutic substances that are integral to naturopathic medicine.
The Ontario process for evaluating the prescribing rights for NDs has not had the intense media focus compared to British Columbia. Almost all of the efforts of the OAND has been focused on working with HPRAC, the provincial government and other health sector stakeholders to build an understanding of the merits of prescribing rights for NDs. This has been a very productive approach to date and as a result the OAND has not been seeking media attention on this topic in Ontario.
Please contact Michael Heitshu, Director of Policy, at 416-233-2001 ext. 27 or policy@oand.org with any questions or comments.
