Nurse practitioners can strengthen substance use care

April 13, 2026

UVic nurse practitioner student Kaitlyn Singh envisions a day when her profession can bridge the treatment and accessibility gap for substance use care. 

A registered nurse with a Fraser Health substance use team, Singh sees the limitations of the current model firsthand, with many substance use care clinics operating only during daytime hours.

“There are not enough providers and not enough providers who want to work in substance use, to meet people where they’re at and to prevent them from going into hospital unnecessarily,” Singh says. 

Policy brief pushes for NP leadership

Her experience compelled her to write a policy brief, called Community substance use care: The role of nurse practitioners in bridging treatment gaps, for her NP program. The brief was published recently on the Nurses and Nurse Practitioners of BC website.  

In the policy brief, Singh advocates for embedding one nurse practitioner with a substance use specialty into existing community substance use care teams.  

She writes these NPs could focus on treating adults with substance use disorder, offering in-person outreach, virtual telehealth appointments and on-call hours to align with late-hour pharmacies.  

Singh says these NPs would bring a holistic lens to their work, offering assessments, prescribing and monitoring medications such as Opioid Agonist Treatment, psychosocial support, education and referrals. 

These NPs would collaborate with registered nurses, social workers and private family providers on community care teams, ensuring continuity of care and safe patient treatment plans, Singh writes.

A decade-long public health emergency

April marks ten years since BC declared the toxic drug crisis a public health emergency—and Singh says nurses can take more leadership in the crisis. 

“Substance-use care is not separate from health care—it's just health care,” Singh says. “The longer we silo it, the harder it is to have meaningful outcomes. We’ll keep seeing more deaths and more harm.”  

Singh has a personal connection to the issue. Her uncle, Cannon Singh (pictured with Singh), lived with substance use disorder and passed away in December 2024 due to health complications related to substance use. He worked as the executive director for an outreach team in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside and was an advocate for harm reduction measures and a major influence in Singh’s life. 

“The crisis is evolving—it’s not disappearing and it’s everywhere,” she says. “We have to rethink how we deliver care and what the nursing impact will be.” 

 

Over her eight-year career as a registered nurse, Singh has worked in hospitals, community outreach teams, and as an addictions assessment nurse at emergency departments. She hopes one day that NPs with substance use specializations can work in the role she advocates for in the policy brief.  

Nursing Professor Marilou Gagnon called Singh’s work exemplary.  

“This just one example of the outstanding work our NP students are doing and one that is worth celebrating for its relevance, timeliness and potential impact,” she says.