The Ford government wants to use private and non-profit clinics to clean up a backlog of surgeries, but you won't pay
In addition, we are looking to non-hospital private and non-profit clinics. No details were given, but documents released on Thursday showed how the government is dealing with the current medical staff crisis and keeping hospitals open when COVID numbers rise again in the fall and winter. It included a document explaining how to
According to this year's report from the Ontario Medical Association, the health system includes 22 million health services ranging from diagnostic tests to treatments to surgeries. It is estimated that there is a backlog of The report called for evolving the model to "include the majority of services provided in community-based professional settings outside of hospitals."
Now the Ford government has confirmed they are heading in that direction. The government says part of its plan to address the backlog is to distribute high-demand surgeries to all surgeons instead of turning to local clinics with very long waiting lists.
“We will also explore options to further increase surgical capacity by increasing the number of OHIP surgeries performed in independent medical facilities,” says a new government report. .
Many of my colleagues in the opposition, and in the media, would yell that this is the privatization of our healthcare system, but it is not. The system is not based on the idea that the government runs all parts of the health system, but rather that there is a single payer - the government.
OHIP card payments
We pay our medical bills by paying taxes. Governments pay for the services we receive through private, public, or non-profit providers.
When you visit your family doctor, you are visiting a private clinic. Doctors are not civil servants. They pay the rent for the office space and pay the nurses and receptionists the fees they receive from the government to see you.
Moving in the direction of allowing simple surgeries such as knee replacements to be performed in independent medical facilities would work just as well.
"If there is a way to provide better publicly funded health care, we will do it," Ford said last week.
Ford and Jones last week argued that no one would pay out of their own pocket even if they changed the way services were delivered. You will be paying with an OHIP card, not a credit card," Ford said last Friday, and Jones echoed the same sentiment on Thursday.
When Jones announced plans to stabilize the system next year, she said
``We cannot accept the status quo any longer. There are those who fight for the status quo, even though they are ideologically opposed to change and improvement," Jones said.
"It's not acceptable. It's not acceptable. People should get better medical care," she said.
Jones is right. Maintaining the status quo created our system. It costs money, but it doesn't give results. We can and should look at what other states and other countries with similar public health systems are doing to achieve better outcomes.
The alternative advocated by too many people with a vested interest in the current system is to spend more money and keep doing what we do... long waits for the care we need A more expensive system of providing lists is not the answer.
Quality care can be assured by the Ford government, paid for by medical cards, and provided by private or non-profit clinics.
Embrace change without fear.
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