After a five-month absence from Queen’s Park, MPP’s found their way back to offices in Toronto. And once of the first items that greeted them was the announcement of the Ford government appointing Jane Philpott to head up Ontario’s new primary care action team. The team is tasked with finding family physicians for 2.5 million Ontarians who today do not have a primary health care provider.
Dr. Philpott comes highly praised from Queens University where she has advocated for a system where each person in the province is automatically connected to a primary health care team. It is like every child being given a place for primary education in their neighbourhood.
Philpott is a former minister of health and Indigenous services in the Trudeau government. Beginning her position on December 1, she will be responsible to develop and implement a plan that will expand team based primary health care across the province.
The NOSM University estimates that 350 doctors are being recruited strictly for Northern Ontario. Even with the opening of two new schools of medicine, the schools of medicine in Ontario will be hard pressed to replace retiring physicians in our province.
In the Rainy River district, we have seen the impact of burnt-out doctors retiring early or leaving the area and the impact it is having on primary health care. With the announcement the Ford government – which is leaning towards a snap election – can off-load health care to this new task force.
One does not perform magic and immediately fill the medical gaps in the province with an announcement to study the problems of primary health care. It is a long process. Doctors and nurses do not graduate in a single year and begin their careers. Funding for more doctors and nurses and hospitals and primary clinics today can’t meet the demand.
One of the current complaints of Physicians in Canada is the time spent on administrative work that removes them from patient care. That will have to be addressed. Philpott has often used the Netherlands example where almost everyone has a primary care physician. In the Netherlands all doctors are salaried and there is no rostering of patients as takes place in Canada.
There are many avenues open to advance primary health care. Health care and doctor shortage will be an issue in the next provincial election. Ideas will be tossed about. Future reports will be written. It will be up to governments to listen and read and implement those ideas and recommendations. If the Primary Care Action Team is to be useful, future governments will have to implement their ideas.
