The Central Newfoundland Health Corporation is bringing in a nurse practitioner to help alleviate waiting times at the Grand Falls-Windsor hospital emergency room.

The move has encouraged many residents, including Donna Patey, who recently had a bad experience at the hospital.

"I actually had my uncle there and he had to wait five hours, and he had pneumonia," Patey said. "And we need more staff wherever we can get them. Emergency, everywhere."

Central Health currently has 22 family doctor vacancies in the region and the shortage is forcing people to go to the emergency room, even when their need is not an emergency.

Central Health said the new nurse practitioner will be in charge of those patients who end up in emergency, but whose conditions aren't immediately serious.

Trudy Stuckless, chief nursing officer with Central Health, said a similar position was created in Gander, about 100 kilometres from Grand Falls-Windsor, in 2006, and it's been successful.

"The nurse practitioner is able to order certain diagnostic tests, X-rays, and laboratory work, and they can order certain medications as well, and they're able to make a diagnosis," Stuckless said. "We don't see the role of the nurse practitioner as going to replace the role of the GP in the emergency department, but certainly complement it. And certainly help us through situations when there are a lot of [doctor] vacancies."

Right now, funding is available for only one nurse practitioner in Grand Falls-Windsor.

"We'll start with one, and work our way through whether we should have another, or two on at the same time, or have them on the weekends as well," Stuckless said, adding that the nurse practitioner should be in place by September.