nursingforsocialjustice

On September 16th, 2020 Dr. Bonnie Henry, on behalf of the British Columbia government announced significant changes that will impact the scope of practice of Registered Nurses and Registered Psychiatric in B.C. The order allows RNs and RPNs the ability to prescribe medications as an alternative to street drugs. What this mean is not entirely clear yet but many nurses in BC and other provinces and territories across Canada are eager to find out.

With these changes there will be an inevitable power shift between physicians and NPs who held those prescribing rights and RNs and RPNs who had limited ability to dispense medications like Over the Counter meds, contraceptives, and antibiotics. In the upcoming days and weeks the nursing college has quite a responsibility ahead of them to figure out how these changes translate into changes in scopes of practice and clinical competencies that accompany them.

I anticipate that a necessary step may be planning for the scopes of practice of RNs and RPNs, professionally distinct for a number of decades, to get closer together. Addiction medicine for now falls within a curious realm of the physical and the mental. Is this an arbitrary dichotomy? Maybe. But opiates agonist therapies have physiological effects that are essential to understand and assess to competently prescribe. My perspective is that addictions and substance use should be part of all undergraduate nursing programs because people who use substances access and need all sorts of healthcare services, not just addictions services.

What do all these changes mean for entry to practice competencies and post-registration speciality training? We shall soon find out.

Peace,

Michelle D.