The Ontario government has revealed a new plan to prevent healthcare interruptions like the one that occurred this weekend in Red Lake, which saw its emergency room close for 24 hours, due to physician staffing shortages.
Announced on Tuesday morning and included in the province’s “Pandemic and Emergency Preparedness Act, 2022,” the plan, titled “A Plan to Stay Open,” intends to tackle the province’s health workforce, domestic production of critical supplies, and the shortage of available hospital beds.
In order to begin to address the shortage of health care workers in the province, the government will introduce a “Learn and Stay” grant aimed at graduates who agree to spend time in an under-serviced community. Ontario will invest $142-million dollars to launch the grant, and will begin with a two-year $81-million investment to expand the Community Commitment Program for Nurses, which will allow 1,500 nurse graduates per year to receive a full tuition reimbursement in exchange for their commitment. The government notes that applications will open up to 2,500 eligible students beginning in Spring 2023. Students will have to commit to stay in an under-serviced area for two years after graduating their program in order to be eligible.
Another aspect of the plan will be creating more seats in medical schools across the province, including at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine in order to support health care needs in rural and northern Ontario.
“This expansion is the largest in over a decade,” the announcement reads.
“It includes 160 new undergraduate seats and 295 new postgraduate positions. The expansion will support all six medical schools across Ontario. The expansion will increase access to family and specialty physicians across the province further bolstering Ontario’s health resources.”
Also included in the government’s plan is to reduce registration barriers for medical professionals who received their credentials in other countries. This would include amendments to the “Regulated Health Professions Act, 1991 (RHPA)” and would prohibit regulatory colleges from requiring Canadian work experience as a qualification for registration, “subject to any exemptions provided for in accompanying regulation.”
The government will additionally make the PSW wage enhancement permanent and provide $41.4-million to support the clinical education component in nursing education programs, allowing publicly assisted colleges and universities to expand laboratory capacity supports and hands-on learning for students.
The second gap the plan addresses includes the domestic production of critical supplies like Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), with the government announcing it will aim to have a “robust” supply of PPE and Critical Supplies and Equipment (CSE) available at any given time in Ontario, ready for unexpected emergencies and removing the need to rely on “unstable” international supply chains. It will also seek to prohibit any person from selling PPE or CSE that was provided free of charge by the provincial government to eliminate scalpers and those seeking to take advantage of emergency situations.
Finally the provincial government has promised $30-billion in funding over the next decade to “address longstanding challenges around [hospital] bed shortages.” The funding seeks to increase capacity in existing hospitals, as well as to build new health care facilities and renew aging hospitals and community health centres. All in all, the government plans for 3,000 new beds to be created over the next 10 years.
This announcement comes days after a shortage of staff in Red Lake forced the closure of the Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital for 24 hours, leaving those seeking emergency medical care to be directed to Dryden, which is more than 200 kilometres away. A quote from Atikokan General Hospital chief of staff Dr. Sara Van Der Loo in a CBC story reporting on the closure said that similar situations are “likely” across much of the northwest in the coming months, and Dr. Marc Ruppenstein of the Fort Frances and District Physician Recruitment and Retention Committee had previously written a letter to Kenora-Rainy River MPP Greg Rickford and Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski asking for both levels of government to address the critical shortages of doctors in the region.
In response to Tuesday’s announcement, Rickford said the government recognizes the need for a stronger health care system across the province, which is what the new “A Plant to Stay Open” is meant to address.
“Now more than ever, our government recognizes the importance of doubling down on our commitment to build a stronger, more resilient health care system that is ready to respond to any crisis.” Rickford said.
“We know that the former Liberal government was all talk and no action when it came to healthcare spending across the North, and our government is making the decision to never be caught off guard by a health emergency ever again.”
