On the eve of an early election call, Doug Ford‘s Progressive Conservatives are unveiling a plan they say will give two million more Ontarians access to a family doctor within four years.
The pledge Monday from Health Minister Sylvia Jones includes $1.4 billion in new funding for expanded primary care health teams at a time when the government is politically vulnerable over a growing doctor shortage.
The Ontario Medical Association says there are now 2.5 million Ontarians without a family doctor, a number that is expected to top four million in the coming years as aging doctors retire.
“We can now achieve our goal of connecting every person in the province who wants a primary care provider,” Jones said in a statement that did not explain the apparent discrepancy with the OMA figures.
The plan appears to be an attempt to match Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie‘s promise to connect every Ontarian with a family doctor in four years.
That so many Ontarians do not have a family doctor almost seven years after Ford took power is shameful, Crombie told reporters Monday.
“Doug Ford has failed to prioritize your health care,” she said, noting hundreds of people lined up in bitter cold and snow for hours last week to sign up for a new family doctor in Walkerton — a sign of how desperate people are to get a family physician.
Dr. Jane Philpott, a former federal Liberal health minister now director of the medical school at Queen’s University, has been contracted by the provincial government to design a new primary care system building on a model being used in Kingston that connects patients with family doctors based on their postal codes.
“We will build a primary care system that is comprehensive, convenient, and connected to every single person in Ontario,” Philpott said in a statement.
“In every community, your primary care team will be your front door to care, where you have a team of clinicians providing care you can access in a timely way, close to home.”
This is a developing story.
