Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls is being tasked with taking the message of preventative care to Queen's Park.
Nicholls paid a recent visit to public health nurses in Chatham where nurses stressed the importance of preventative care as way to improve health outcomes and reduce the number of people needing hospital care.
"Health starts long before illness," says Marian McEwan with the Chatham-Kent Public Health Unit. "In our homes, our schools, our workplaces, our community."
McEwan says preventative care needs to be a key plank in how the province approaches health care.
Nicholls understands the need for preventative care to be more greatly considered.
"Even though they have limited resources, the one thing I'm taking away from this is saying, 'What more can we do to provide adequate resources to our public health nurses?'" says Nicholls. "So that it's not a burden at the the other end which is the hospitals."
Nicholls visited the health unit as part of the 16th Annual Take Your MPP to Work initiative which sees politicians and nurses connect to discuss health care.