Today’s Speech from the Throne outlines the Ontario government’s priorities leading up to the next election in two years. Included is confirmation of their commitment to:
- Balance the budget in the next fiscal year
- “Build a Health Care System Everyone Can Rely On”, which includes reintroducing Bill 210 (the Patients First Act) and deliver on the Primary Care Guarantee
This health care document credits the increase in the number of doctors and nurses and the introduction of family health teams among government’s actions resulting in “patient experiences and outcomes have steadily improved”.
Looking forward, this document states, “… the proposed Patients First Act will better coordinate and integrate access to primary care and home and community care for all Ontarians, helping the government deliver on its commitment to connect a family doctor or nurse practitioner to everyone who wants one.”
The document also commits to:
- Ensuring fair compensation and investing in front-line health care professionals: The province is committed to growing the number of frontline healthcare professionals who provide high-quality patient care in Ontario. To do so, it has taken a firm stance that any new health care dollars must go to services in the community that provide care to the most people, and not only to higher salaries for administrators or certain specialists who are already receiving fair compensation for their services. The province will continue to work with Ontario’s doctors to reach an agreement that honours this shared commitment to enhance primary care and put patients first. Ontario’s doctors will continue to be among the most highly paid in Canada. Personal support workers are receiving the raises the government committed to, and that they deserve, for their role in caring for millions of people’s loved ones. To help ensure every available resource is going towards patient care, the province will reduce bureaucratic inefficiencies by merging Community Care Access Centres with Local Health Integration Networks.
While Minister Hoskins commited $85 million over three years to improve compensation in interprofessional primary care, this is but a first step on the road to achieving the compensation structure recommended by AFHTO and its partners (AOHC and NPAO) in “Toward a Primary Care Recruitment and Retention Strategy for Ontario.”
Funding letters for each FHT, NPLC, AHAC (and through the LHINs for CHCs) await ministerial sign-off; fortunately, this funding is retroactive to April 1, 2016. AFHTO and our partners, AOHC and NPAO, continue to follow up to get these letters out to teams as soon as possible. In the next few months, we will also gear up advocacy to get government commitment for funding to completely fulfill these compensation recommendations.
Angie Heydon, Chief Executive Officer
Leave a Reply