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At their long-awaited meeting with Mr. Trudeau, today in Ottawa he is outlining his proposal for healthcare financing to all the provincial premiers with, of course, strings attached.

The state of health care in Ontario is constantly in the news.  Pick up any paper, any day of the week, and there’s sure to be an article, an opinion piece or a letter to the editor, bemoaning our constantly inadequate and ever deteriorating health care system. Some of the most common complaints include:

• The difficulty (nigh-on impossibility, in some communities) in finding a family physician; and
• Amongst Ontarians who do have a doctor, frustration in scheduling timely appointments; and
• Lengthy ER wait times; and
• Dilatory access to specialists; and
• Long wait times for surgeries, often followed by postponements or cancellations; and
• Protracted appointment dates for diagnostics; etc., etc., etc.

The family doctor has traditionally been the captain of the patient’s health care ship, a pillar bearing the tremendous load of patient trust and confidence. Family docs have always been the ones responsible for coordinating the patient’s care across multiple disciplines, following up on results - often explaining those diagnoses to the patient, and doling out the necessary prescriptions/renewals, encouragement, and advice. In short, the mainstay of our well-being. 

The paucity of family physicians in Ontario - at least those who are still accepting new patients - is rapidly approaching a crisis point (if, indeed, we’re not already there!).  This plight is province-wide, but nowhere more prevalent and urgent than in small towns where the search for a doctor can take years.  We have a friend who is now nine years and still waiting; absent a walk-in clinic in his community, his entire medical care during that time has occurred in an emergency department, conducted by an ever-lengthening chain of medical personnel - never the same doctor or nurse twice.  He has had no continuity of care for nearly a decade and his stress and anguish are palpable when he speaks of health care in Ontario.  Exactly as one would expect of someone who had endured such abasement.

Me?  I must have the hardest-working guardian angel watching over me. We arrived in Kingsville mid-August 2022 and by mid-September 2022 I had been accepted as a patient at Kingsville Family Health. I was assigned to a young, female doc, I had my meet-and-greet back in October and this week I had my first, “annual”, complete, in-the-office-face-to-face physical since COVID locked us in our bubble of two back in February 2020.  

My new doctor is well-trained and kind and thorough and gentle and helpful and encouraging and thoughtful and smart as a whip!  I’ve already been referred to two specialists - appointments booked for 8th and 16th this month (February)!!! - and I’ve had a diagnostic imaging referral which is a walk-in lab - no appointment necessary.  Really!  Pure amazingness, yes!?!  And neither of my issues are emergencies.   

Even though I seem to have the medical Midas touch, I am well aware that my story is diametrically opposed to those of thousands of Ontarians. Our health care is definitely sub-standard; far below the basic level of treatment we want and expect, but healthcare is a very expensive sector, there is no provincial surplus and we’re all already feeling over-taxed.  Hence the premiers conference in Ottawa and their plea (demand?), that the federal government bear a greater burden of the provincial health care costs.  

Lots of possible solutions have been floated, from myriad sources (suddenly, everyone is an expert), and many of those have already been discarded.  The one that refuses to go away and really scares me because Mr. Ford is so staunchly supportive, is the privatisation of medical care and minor surgical procedures. True that the four Premiers in favour of this course of action, maintain that those surgeries will be fully covered by their provinces’ health care plans, but...

That assertion applies only to the cost of the actual procedure.  Other administrative and ancillary expenses will all be billed directly to the patient.  Those fees are neither covered by provincial healthcare plans, nor regulated by any provincial governments.  Such patient costs may include (but are not be limited to):

1. Providing Doctor’s absentee notes for employers; and
2. Providing reports to the patient’s family physician; and
3. Protracted care.  For example, if the clinic deems the maximum post-surgical recovery period to be 4 hours and the patient requires 6 hours, the two hours of additional care will come at an extra cost - billable directly to the patient.

Those are three I’ve already heard about directly from patients who have received such care.  There may be more.

The really big problem with health care privatisation has nothing to do with patient fees.  Doctors nation-wide (including my beloved Dr. S.) are sounding the alarm that, should privatisation be approved by the provincial ministries, the very best physicians and surgeons will gradually defect to exclusive private practice, where their remuneration is expected be higher and their workdays are expected to be shorter.  This projected mass exodus will leave our hospitals staffed by those doctors with the lowest academic achievement and the least on-the-job experience.  The overall health of Ontarians is sure to decline.

If you’re either undecided about, or feeling supportive of healthcare privatisation, and even if you’re sufficiently affluent to absorb any related expenses, please, please consider the effect of this change on the majority of Ontarians who must rely on public healthcare and its coverage.  To ensure the hardihood of care in our beloved province, please do not support privatisation.

Here’s hoping that Mr. Trudeau comes through for all Canadians today!

’Til next time, y’all…