Pharmacists are wanting their scope of practice expanded so they can help Manitobans while the province deals with a physician shortage. “We’ve been asking the government for quite some time to expand the scope for pharmacists to be able to assess and prescribe for many more minor ailments than what we have currently authorized in Manitoba,” said Britt Kural, the pharmacy practice advisor for Pharmacists Manitoba. Kural said Manitoba pharmacists have the lowest scope of practice in the entire country, as they are only allowed to assess and prescribe for around 15 minor ailments. “Most other provinces are double or four times what we can currently do in Manitoba. So we’ve asked them to expand the scope to include an additional 40 minor ailments.” This latest call comes as the province is exploring the possibility of virtual care in emergency rooms in Winnipeg and the implementation of virtual care at the emergency room in Ste. Rose du Lac, all because of a lack of doctors. Kural said if pharmacists were able to do more, the virtual care wouldn’t be needed, as they could handle some of the things that people go to the hospital or a walk-in clinic for. Currently, pharmacists can assess and prescribe for things like hormonal contraception, urinary tract infections and oral thrush. They want to have the ability to assess for other illnesses like strep throat and pink eye and treat people who have shingles. “These are things that we’re already trained to do and we think that Manitobans deserve that access to care that pharmacists can provide.” Kural points to a similar change in Nova Scotia a few years ago, where pharmacists were able to do more and impacted the health-care system in a positive way. “They have pharmacy care clinics and they have found that through those pharmacy care clinics they were able to defer or reduce the number of emergency room visits by 10 per cent with just being able to access care through pharmacies in that province and another 25 per cent of walk-in clinic visits were diverted because of those pharmacy care clinics.” Pharmacists Manitoba is calling for these changes to happen soon—in the next few months, not years—as Kural notes there are around 130,000 Manitobans who don’t have access to primary care. “We know that pharmacists are one of the most accessible health-care providers. There’s over 1,700 pharmacists in Manitoba in over 90 communities. That is a huge amount of infrastructure already in place with health-care providers that are trained and ready to provide care that can help reduce ER wait times and walk-in clinics as well.” In a statement from the province, a spokesperson said the government is working to expand the care pharmacists can provide. “Pharmacists can help reduce the burden on emergency departments by helping Manitobans stay healthy and access care in their communities,” they said. “There is more work being done, including expanding their scope to cover additional minor ailments. We’re actively working with pharmacists and their regulatory college to advance these improvements quickly.”
