Office of the Premier - video screen capture
Premier Doug Ford & Health Minister Sylvia Jones
Premier Doug Ford & Health Minister Sylvia Jones
Monday, the Premier confirmed what he’s been hinting at since last summer – private healthcare will be expanding in Ontario. The Doug Ford government will soon introduce legislation offering millions of dollars of funding to private clinics to help alleviate a chronic backlog of ‘simple surgeries’ and procedures.
“Knee replacement, hip replacements, cataracts,” the Premier explained, “these are no-brainers.”
This follows last week's announcement that pharmacists can prescribe treatments for 13 ailments, such as hemorrhoids, cold sores and insect bites.
In fact, facilities such as the Don Mills Surgical Unit in Etobicoke have already received over $8 million over the past two years to perform thousands of surgeries and procedures.
Standing alongside the Premier at the Kensington Health Centre in Toronto (a private, not-for-profit Independent Health Facility), Health Minister Sylvia Jones stated on Monday, “We need to be bold, innovative and creative” to clear some of the 260,000 surgeries that are pending due to lack of operating rooms, nurses and certified doctors.
Jones noted that the current healthcare system forces hospitals to push back surgeries if an urgent emergency needs immediate medical attention. “We need to build on the spirit of collaboration on display across the healthcare sector.”
Ford said Ontario surgeons need the ability to perform more ‘serious’ surgeries in hospitals. He said the private clinics would free up more time and capacity in hospital operating rooms. The Premier also noted that he was surprised when he read in the media that many surgical doctors only work one and a half days a week. “We can do better,” he said.
Both Ford and Jones, on several occasions, claimed that Ontarians will “always be able to access the healthcare they need with their OHIP card, not their credit card.” Critics, however, are concerned that once patients are offered a procedure at a clinic, extra fees or ‘upselling of better products and services might be introduced, given that many of these clinics will be for-profit and concerned about the bottom line.
When Jones was asked repeatedly about extra costs at these clinics, the Health Minister noted that if patients feel that they have been over-charged for a procedure covered by OHIP, they can lodge a complaint with the Ministry.
Another concern is that private clinics may ‘siphon off’ nurses and doctors from the hospital system, leaving hospitals with even fewer staff.
In a statement released Monday, incoming Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles and NDP Health critic France Gélinas wrote, “This was Doug Ford’s plan all along. He has spent years starving our healthcare system of resources, demoralizing healthcare workers with his wage-capping Bill 124 and leaving Ontarians desperate for care and frustrated by his games. People will end up paying out of pocket and face longer wait times in our hospitals, as his plan drives healthcare workers from our public system.”
John Fraser, Ontario Liberal Interim Leader, said, “The government needs to be up to the job of building a publicly funded, publicly governed, publicly owned healthcare system in Ontario.
The province is investing $300 million as part of its ‘surgical recovery strategy’ that will increase scheduled surgeries, procedures and diagnostic imaging services that were hit the hardest during the pandemic. The new funding for private clinics will be rolled out in three stages.
Step 1 will tackle cataract surgeries at three facilities in Ottawa, Kitchener-Waterloo, and Windsor, beginning this year.
Step 2 will focus on cataract surgeries, MRI and CT imaging, and colonoscopy and endoscopy procedures in late 2023 or 2024.
Step 3 will expand surgeries for hip and knee replacements in 2024.
MPP Stephen Crawford was asked for a comment, but his office stated that he was too busy with budget consultations to respond.
MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos responded with: Our government is working to make it faster and easier for people to access the surgeries and procedures they need by better integrating and using community surgical and diagnostic centres to increase capacity and complete more publicly funded services. Increasing community capacity will target patients who have been waiting the longest amount of time for treatment and expand available options to receive safe, quality care.
The plan will add 14,000 more OHIP-insured cataract surgeries each year, expand community-based clinics to perform more surgeries such as cataracts and MRI and CT imaging and introduce legislation to expand surgeries for hip and knee replacements in community-based clinics by 2024. Allowing community providers to provide more procedures should also help free up time and space in our hospitals so that other critical surgeries can be performed more quickly.
People will be able to get these services with their health card and it is important to note there are safeguards in place to ensure no extra charges occur for OHIP funded procedures. Many services are offered by community providers in our health care system already, such as family doctors working in their own offices, X-ray clinics and blood test labs with services covered by OHIP.
Our priority is ensuring that Ontarians receive services quickly and the plan we have just announced has received support from the Ontario Hospital Association as well as major hospitals such as Sunnybrook and the University Health Network.
A statement came from Oakville Trafalgar Memorial Hospital (Halton Healthcare). “Halton Healthcare is still in the process of learning about what today’s announcement will mean for our hospitals and for the healthcare system.” In an earlier statement, Halton Healthcare shared, “Our hospitals are working hard to address wait times for services that were either deferred or delayed due to the pandemic. Our communities rely on these services, and we look to our government to make ongoing investments that will support the services and the needs of our growing and aging population.”
