The right care, at the right time, in the right place, by the right professional. It’s the new Ministry of Health mantra and Social Services, which relies on interdisciplinarity to improve access to first-line care and relieve emergency room congestion. The duty presents you with initiatives where professionals push collaboration to the maximum, for the benefit of patients. Last text of three.
Janie Charest is the right arm of Dr Claude Rivard. A veritable dynamo, the nurse sees all the family doctor’s patients before the consultations. Taking vital signs, list of minor ailments and health problems to address, blood test results… She clears the ground for the Dr Rivard, who only has to listen to the patient and question him on targeted points. “It saves him time,” she says.
The Dr Rivard practices at the Hauts-Bois family clinic in Sainte-Julie, Montérégie. He hired Janie Charest three years ago. The doctor pays her out of pocket. “It costs me $40,000 a year and that includes salary and rent for his cubicle,” he says. The nurse technician earns $35 an hour and works 20 to 25 hours a week, he says.
The Dr Rivard believes this is a winning formula. “I have to see four to five more patients a day,” he estimates. And I think I give them better service. »
Blue jeans, checkered shirt and hiking shoes… the Dr Rivard is an extraordinary doctor. He embraced medicine late in life after giving up farming — he raised poultry for eight years. “I was tired of working seven days a week. I collected 2000 eggs a day and I wanted to see people! »
The 62-year-old man, who has been practicing medicine for 27 years, still works a lot. But he sees people. It has 1400 registered patients. Despite everything, the doctor claims to be able to “take his time” during his medical consultations. And it is, according to him, thanks to the presence of Janie Charest.
Efficiency and mental health
In Quebec, family physicians who team up with a nurse for their office consultations are a minority. General practitioners working in a family medicine group (FMG) tend to use, for example, nurse clinicians — on loan from the CIUSSS and CISSS — for follow-up of chronic diseases, such as diabetes. When they have access to it… For the past two years, many doctors have complained to the To have to to have lost professionals in GMF and never to have found them all.
In this context, new doctors have every interest in hiring their “own” nurse, thinks Dr.r Rivard, also president of the Association of General Practitioners Richelieu-Saint-Laurent. “A young person who begins his practice has the means to pay for one,” he maintains. It’s good business to have help when starting out. It’s even better for him. For his “mental health”, among other things, he adds.
Janie Charest does a lot of work for the Dr Rivard. In the Hauts-Bois clinic, the tiny nurse walks with a hurried step. When passing the To have to, she weighed and measured little Hubert — “Bravo champion! — and asked his mother about his development and his numerous ear infections. She discussed 13 health issues with one patient. She gave two desensitization vaccine injections for allergies and answered a call from a home care respiratory therapist about an elder being followed by Dr.r Rivard.
The nurse also checks the results of blood tests — between 20 and 30 a day, according to the Dr Rivard. “All the analyzes I see are abnormal analyses,” said the doctor. The analyzes where everything is beautiful, it is already classified. It reduces my workload. »
Patients win. Jauvette Lechasseur, 68, enjoyed going around her health problems with Janie Charest. “It’s good because everything I told her, she will communicate it to the Dr Rivard, [parce que] in the office, I often forget some,” explains the beneficiary attendant, who works in surgery at the Pierre-Boucher Hospital.
” Quality of life “
The Dr Rivard acknowledges that not all family physicians can adopt his model. Space is sometimes limited in medical clinics and no room is available for a new nurse. “But two doctors can share it,” he says.
The health network could also suffer from massive hiring of nurses in private practice, considering the current labor shortage. “You offer a job weekdays to a young woman who has children, who is busy at night and who does OSI [temps supplémentaire obligatoire]. We are more interesting than the network”, judges the Dr Rivard.
Janie Charest, she loves her job which offers her “a quality of life”. The single mother wants to “give time” to her three teenagers, aged 13, 14 and 15, one of whom has a learning disability. She can afford to work part-time. “I was lucky enough to buy my house at a very young age,” she explains. I don’t have payments up to my neck. »
Janie Charest is not closing the door to a return, one day, to the emergency room of the Pierre-Boucher Hospital, where she worked in the past. “The urgency has always been strong,” she says, smiling. For the moment, the nurse feels useful where she is. And she remains convinced that her “job is the most beautiful in the world”.