Don't Shut Down the Nurse Anesthetists

A bill that will dramatically decrease rural Oklahomans' access to quality health care is moving forward in the state Legislature. Senate Bill 1133, by Rep. John Trebilcock, R-Broken Arrow, and Sen. Clark Jolley, R-Edmond, would remove certified registered nurse anesthetists' ability to help Oklahomans manage chronic pain, something these graduate degree-trained providers have been doing for decades.

The state's 500-plus nurse anesthetists are as well-trained in pain management as general-practice physicians and are equally able to offer Oklahomans with arthritis and debilitating injury a measure of relief. Yet any physician, regardless of training, will be able to provide pain management, while nurse anesthetists will not.

If SB 1133 passes, Oklahoma will become the first state to prohibit nurse anesthetists from practicing chronic pain management.

The bill's supporters have yet to make a public-health case for its passage. Complaints against nurse anesthetists for providing pain management are nonexistent, and even rural doctors acknowledge that they often would be unable to offer pain management without nurse anesthetists.

Many of the state's counties have no anesthesiologist. Nurse anesthetists practice in every one of the state's 77 counties. Forty-one counties have nurse anesthetists only. Seventeen have nurse anesthetists and anesthesiologists. Overall, nurse anesthetists perform roughly 70 percent of anesthesia in the state. In rural areas it's more like 85 percent. Continued @ Tulsa World