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Province releases new health care plan designed to relieve pressure on the system

February 10, 2023   ·   0 Comments

By Brian Lockhart

The Ontario government has released a new plan for health care in the province, focusing on providing a better care experience by connecting people to more convenient options closer to home while shortening wait times for key services and growing the health care workforce.

“Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care” aims to provide services in a convenient location, with faster access and more health care workers.

“When it comes your health and the health of all Ontarians, the status quo isn’t working,” said Sylvia Jones, deputy premier and minister of health. “As we put our bold plan into action, you will be connected to care when you need it most and where it’s most convenient, whether that’s closer to home in your community or even at home.”

Key initiatives in the plan are under three pillars: The Right Care in the Right Place, Faster Access to Care, and Hiring More Health Care workers.

“The province continues to take action to ensure that all Ontarians, including those in Simcoe-Grey, have access to the health care they need in their community, closer to home and their loved ones,” said Brian Saunderson, MPP for Simcoe-Grey. “Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care is building on our government’s efforts to strengthen Ontario’s public health care system, ensuring it is there for patients and families for years to come.”

Under the first pillar, regarding recieving the right care in the right place, the plan includes expanding the role of pharmacists. As of Jan. 1, 2023, pharmacists can prescribe medications for 13 common ailments to people across Ontario at no extra cost.

It will be faster and easier for youth to connect to mental health and substance use support as well as primary care, through the plan, according to the Ontario Government.

The plan also calls for expanding team-based care through Ontario Health Teams to better connect and coordinate a person’s care within their own community by improving their transition between various health care providers, with up to 1,200 more physicians being added to family health organizations.

In the pillar of Faster Access, the plan is to make it easier and faster to get publicly funded surgeries and procedures by further leveraging the support of community surgical and diagnostic centres to eliminate surgical backlogs and reduce wait times.

This includes investing more than $18 million in existing centres to cover care for thousands of patients.

Paramedics will have more flexibility to treat people who call 9-1-1 at home or on-site rather than in emergency rooms.

The plan calls for building almost 60,000 new and upgraded long-term care beds to help address wait lists for long-term care.

“We are talking about significant capital investments,” Mr. Saunderson said. “We’re working with 15 communities where hospital expansion or redevelopments are taking place. In Simcoe-Grey, both Collingwood General & Marine Hospital and Stevenson Memorial Hospital have capital projects in the works. We are looking at having non-invasive surgeries, done in private facilities but OHIP would pay for that. We are working to try improving people’s access – and that’s part of the ‘faster access to care.”

Non-invasive surgeries include things like hip and knee replacements or cataract surgery.

Hiring more health care workers is a priority. The plan calls to move forward with the largest medical school education expansion in more than a decade by adding 160 undergraduate seats and 295 postgraduate positions over the next five years.

This expansion includes the new Toronto Metropolitan University’s School of Medicine.

“As we continue to prioritize a strong health care workforce in the years ahead, expanding bold initiatives like the new Learn and Stay Grant will help train the next generation of health care workers to support communities with the greatest need,” said Jill Dunlop, minister of colleges and universities. “By providing targeted financial incentives to encourage students to learn and work in priority regions, the Learn and Stay Grant will ensure that our health care professionals get the training they need to make immediate impacts in their local communities.”

During 2022 and 2023, the province is investing $300 million as part of the surgical recovery strategy to increase scheduled surgeries and procedures as well as diagnostic imaging with a focus on areas with the greatest reduction in services due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Health care is by far, the biggest provincial portfolio,” Mr. Saunderson said. “We spent $77 billion in the last fiscal year, that’s an increase of $14 billion since 2018. The next biggest is education which is around $35 billion. This is giving people an understanding of how these significant investments are targeted and what the roadmap is as we move forward over the next ten years and address some of the significant issues we have. Our system is under stress, and that’s for a whole bunch of reasons, and the pandemic has certainly played a big role in that.”

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