Health Care System Should Be Legal - 1332 Words

Introduction The movement to allow registered nurses (RNs) to prescribe some medications has gained attention in the media recently. This involves administering or dispensing drugs to treat certain diseases, symptoms, and conditions. We believe that Ontario’s health care system should be changed to allow nurses to prescribe a limited list of medications, and this document is intended to help the general public to understand important points about this debate. There are several excellent reasons to support this idea, as well as significant concerns to be addressed. We will explain why this is important for the future of our healthcare system, offer arguments to support nurses prescribing, and discuss rational objections and restrictions†¦show more content†¦This authority would extend to two broad circumstances: working within a patient’s existing diagnoses, and in emergency situations to prevent delays in patient care or unnecessary hospitalization. For example, this would allow a nurse to help a patient who is experiencing side effects from a medication by changing to an alternate medication for the same problem; prescribe an anaesthetic cream for a patient who will clearly need stitches; or order insulin for a resident of a long-term care home who is known to have diabetes. Three Arguments Of course, neither convenience nor demand alone justify RNs prescribing as a safe and effective solution. In medicine, patient safety is the top priority, and delivering that safety consistently for the long term is an economic problem; if the system is not affordable, tomorrow’s patients will not receive the same level of care as today’s. Thus, as individuals and as a profession, nurses must be concerned with this issue. We have divided our arguments into three categories: efficiency, education, and economics. They are discussed separately here, but it is important to remember that they are all connected on many levels. Efficiency: Faster Service In many clinical settings the wait times tend to be longer than expected, and longer wait times for patients can lead to larger issues as well. A study conducted by White et al.