A new role for nurses at walk-in centres and CLSCs is allowing the health care workers to follow chronic patients and ease the doctors' load.

The $117-million initiative funded by the Quebec government will create 500 jobs in five years, giving nurses the ability to meet with patients, prescribe medication and order diagnostic tests.

"We work with our physician partners to follow these patients on a regular basis so that they have regular follow-up and are seen more quickly," explained Jewish General Hospital nurse Kelly Thorstad.

The two-year nurse practioner program for the new positions requires nurses to hold an undergraduate degree before applying.

The new role is a great asset to patients, said McGill nursing school director Helene Ezer.

"This will create really good quality of care to patients – an ear and an understanding of the experiences that sometimes physicians don't have in the way that nurses do," said Ezer.

The doctor-nurse relationship is meant to shift some responsibility to nurses and allow physicians to take on new clients.

"This should probably improve the access, so that more Quebecers will be able to find a family physician," said Louis Godin, president of the Quebec Federation of General Practitioners.

The new jobs may also help keep a struggling nurses' workforce from abandoning the public sector for private work, said Lynne McVeigh, director of nursing at the Jewish General Hospital.

"We like to create a variety of trajectories for nurses, and this is also a new career trajectory that now has positions available and funded in the health care system," said McVeigh.

Thorstad agreed, though said she hopes the new relationship is used to its potential.

"It's learning how best we can be used and really complement the role of family physicians," said Thorstad.