Listen to the whole story here:
The Ontario government announced a billion-dollar plan it says will connect Ontarians to family doctors today. Many Ontarians are without a primary care provider, which makes it difficult to access specialized or more frequent care.
“This plan is ambitious, and the changes will not happen overnight. But when our shared vision is realized, we will have a primary care system in the province that has never existed before,” said Dr. Jane Philpott, chair of the province’s Primary Care Action Team at a press conference on Jan. 27.
“Every person in Ontario, every baby, every child, teenager, parent, adult, seniors, will have a family doctor or nurse practitioner when they need one,” said Philpott.
Philpott made the announcement just two days before Premier Doug Ford is expected to trigger a snap election, a move that was immediately criticized by the opposition party as election bait.
“I’m very cynical about it. It’s too little too late. Where has he been for seven years?” said Bonnie Crombie, leader of the Ontario Liberal Party in her own press conference today.
“Two and a half million people without a family doctor, and another three million at jeopardy because more family doctors are set to retire. Where’s the progress been? Now, the day before an election call, we’re gonna do an update with Jane Philpott?” said Crombie.
The Ontario government says it plans to spend $1.4 billion on a plan to connect every Ontarian with a primary health-care provider by 2029. This investment will add to the $400 million already earmarked for primary care improvement, according to a news release.
“Ontario is embarking on a historic opportunity to build a primary care system where the guarantee of access to a primary care team is as automatic as a child being assigned to a public school in their community,” said Philpott at the press conference on Jan. 27.
The details provided by the province include creating 300 new primary care teams, which will extend service to the estimated two million Ontarians who remain without access to primary care services. The government says these teams will include family physicians, nurse practitioners, nurses, midwives, and other health-care professionals.
Nearly one in seven ER visits were for conditions that could likely be treated in primary care, according to a study from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. While research shows that nearly 2.3 million Ontarians are currently without a family doctor, the number is predicted to rise to 4.4 million by the end of next year, according to the Ontario College of Family Physicians.
“We have built a plan to attach two million people to care and it is highly detailed and that has been costed out and approved to be able to deliver that care,” Philpott said. “We will continue to update our numbers as we go along and we will make sure every person has access to care.”
The plan was welcomed by the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), but they warned that “for every three physicians added to the system, two are lost. The challenges are real and are impacting every community across Ontario,” in a press release.
“The future health and wellbeing of the province needs to be addressed with a great sense of urgency.”
Ontario Green Party leader Mike Schreiner was in Parry Sound–Muskoka today, but previously addressed the issues facing Ontario’s healthcare system, saying: “After seven years under Doug Ford, our healthcare system is understaffed and underfunded. Emergency rooms are overflowing, and people are lining up overnight to register with a family doctor. And Doug Ford’s solution? Make it worse with privatization.”
Schreiner has also previously said that Ontario’s healthcare system is the lowest funded per-capita out of all the provinces.
Through 340 undergraduate and 551 residency spots, by expanding the Learn and Stay Grant to include family medicine, introducing Practice Ready Ontario, as well as the inception of two new medical schools at Toronto Metropolitan University and York University, Health Minister Sylvia Jones predicted that nearly 1,500 new family doctors will enter Ontario’s workforce in the next three years at the same press conference led by Philpott.
“We are creating new pathways to train more family doctors than ever before,” Jones said.
Along with this, Jones says that the government is set to connect 300,000 more Ontarians to primary service providers in the next year.
