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Quebec Health Minister Danielle McCann made a surprising announcement this week when she stated doctors were ready to cede more ground to nurses in medical clinics. By the end of the year, the minister said, Quebec’s registered nurses could be diagnosing patients.

Gaetan Barrette, the health minister under the previous Liberal government, told The Canadian Press in an interview earlier in the week that McCann would likely have to use the threat of legislation in order to get the doctors to change. When he wanted to give more authority to nurses during his mandate, he said he had to personally intervene in the file and threaten the college of physicians.

“Behind closed doors I said: ‘Either you move or I will legislate’ — and they moved,” Barrette said. As a result of his efforts, nurse practitioners in the province gained the authority last March to initiate treatment for six chronic illnesses and to prescribe more medications than had previously been the case. But an official diagnosis still had to come from a doctor; patients were required by law to be seen by a doctor within 30 days of being treated by a nurse practitioner.

Less than a year later, all that has changed. The college decided Friday that patients will no longer have to see a doctor after being treated and diagnosed by a nurse practitioner for common health issues or for the six chronic illnesses, Langis confirmed.

Quebec’s college of physicians had always been opposed to giving nurses more authority. Barrette, a radiologist who was president of the federation of Quebec’s medical specialists from 2006-14, said there is a culture among Quebec doctors that makes it difficult for them to accept change.