The Ontario government in an effort to address the shortage of family doctors is set to open the first three of 25 new clinics headed by nurse-practitioners. 

Premier Dalton McGuinty committed to opening 25 such clinics across the province by 2012 with the first three clinics in Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Belle River. The Ministry of Health said these clinics headed by nurse-practitioners will focus on primary care, including chronic disease management and health promotion. 

Nurse practitioners are registered nurses who can prescribe medications, order lab tests, X-rays and other diagnostic tests and have advanced education in assessment, diagnosis and health-care management.

In a comment posted on the ministry's website, Wendy Fucile, president of the Registered Nurses' Association of Ontario said, "Today's announcement is the answer thousands of people have been waiting for."

The first such nurse practitioner-led clinic, opened in Sudbury in 2007, and has provided health care to more than 2,000 patients who did not have a family doctor the Ministry said. 

According to estimates by the Ontario Medical Association about 850,000 people in the province don't have access to a family doctor. 

According to the Canadian Institute of Health Information report nurse practitioners are becoming increasingly popular but they still represent just a tiny proportion of the nearly 258,000 registered nurses in Canada. 

The institute added that between 2003 and 2007 the number of licensed nurse practitioners almost doubled to 1,346, and every territory and province except the Yukon Territory had licensed nurse practitioner programs in 2007.