Thank you.
Thanks for being here to help us understand the shortage of health human resources and what we need to do about it.
We've heard from a number of witnesses before today about the benefits of inter-professional collaborative care. We're hearing more support for that. We've also heard about barriers to implementing the model in pilot projects that's been shown to work.
I'd like to hear from the representatives of the naturopathic physicians. This is about barriers to this kind of practice. We've heard about such barriers from other members of the medical profession. I'm hearing that there's more bias and there are additional barriers to those generally in place through...well, the other kinds of changes to the system that would be needed to foster inter-collaborative care.
I have two questions.
First, can you tell me what kind of research supports the cost-effectiveness of naturopathic treatment?
Second, perhaps you could tell us a bit more about your problems with or barriers to access to substances that you use in treating patients, and how restrictions on the full scope of practice for which you're trained also create a barrier to your contributing to the health human resource solutions.
I'll be sharing my time with Dr. Martin as well.