The Ontario government saying it wants to make it "easier and faster" for people to access the publicly funded surgeries and procedures they need through private clinics is not sitting well with some health-care professionals.
Premier Doug Ford and Health Minister Sylvia Jones made the announcement Jan. 16 and said it was the start of a three-step process.
In a statement, Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte MPP Doug Downey said that over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ontario hospitals and surgical procedures have experienced higher-than-normal wait-times.
“(This) announcement helps to alleviate some of these pressures by providing OHIP-funded care within the community,” said Downey. “This new approach to surgical and diagnostic care will help Ontarians receive the services they need within a timely manner and ensure they are able to access procedures that will help improve their quality of life.”
Dianne Martin, who is the chief executive officer at the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario (WeRPN), says she's worried about what this means for the future of health care in the province.
“I’m actually quite concerned with what is happening with the privatization of health care. We know, in the face of the nursing shortage, Ontario has already become overly reliant on our for-profit agencies,” Martin told BarrieToday. “These services are made to work for them, make them more money because our wages are so limited due to Bill 124. A good portion of the profits goes into the person who owns the agency.”
Martin, who has been a nurse since 1979 and who has experience working in several Ontario hospitals, predominantly perinatal care, also says she's leery of the talk that this will not lead to privatization, because those for-profit businesses can pay much more than what is available now.
“That's how we’re staffing many of our long-term care homes and hospitals right now. When you think about how much we need improvements in health care, wages that will retain people, and then think about the fact that we are already putting profit in the pockets of people instead of our needs, you can see what is going to happen,” Martin said.
The government has said it is making this move to help the current health-care system with backlogs in different areas of help, but Martin says the publicly funded system could be repaired and at a cheaper cost.
“Nurses, under the pressure of low wages, have moved on to these privatized staffing agencies and now the amount of taxpayer dollars that are being spent to bring new nurses in to our hospitals and long-term care homes is so much higher than what it would have been to just allow nurses to negotiate a fair wage for the job,” she said.
Meanwhile, Royal Victoria Regional Health Centre (RVH) president and chief executive officer Gail Hunt says that, along with many other facilities in the province, the Barrie hospital is dealing with a backlog in cataract operations and other surgical procedures caused by operating-room closures during the pandemic.
“We have seen modest improvement recently as the staff and physicians at RVH continue to run our operating rooms and endoscopy suites at full capacity," Hunt said in a statement, "but wait-times still remain longer than pre-pandemic levels."
Hunt said RVH has a wait-and-see approach as it awaits more details on any changes.
"We are interested to hear more about the government’s announcement and how it could help patients access care more quickly without impacting our already challenged human resources,” she said.
Hunt also pointed out the use of private clinics is not unprecedented in Barrie, using the example that RVH has a long-standing relationship with Barrie Endoscopy, which is a privately clinic on Quarry Ridge Road.
“In fact, we are already in the process of finding an appropriate location and working with our physicians and stakeholders to create a plan for a safe relocation of some cataract surgery procedures," she said. "With ministry of health approvals, and securing sufficient staff, our target is for a cataract clinic to open in late spring.
“Our patients currently wait 12 to 18 months for their procedure, so this plan will shorten the wait for cataract surgery while freeing up operating room time at RVH for other surgical procedures," Hunt added. "We anticipate that such initiatives, when combined with adequate staffing levels and new infrastructure, will enhance the availability of surgical care in Barrie and the Simcoe-Muskoka area.”
Dr. Nancy Whitmore, who is the chief executive officer at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), said she recently met with senior officials from the ministry of health and the minister’s office regarding the premier’s announcement.
“We reiterate our position that complex procedures such as hip and knee-joint replacement surgeries should remain connected to the hospital system to ensure continuity of care and patient safety,” Whitmore said in a statement fo BarrieToday. “The CPSO is supportive of expanding access to diagnostic procedures and less complex surgical procedures in community settings. However, we emphasized our ongoing concern about creating further strain on the present health-care provider crisis, particularly in skilled operating-room nurses and anesthesiologists.”
Whitmore says the CPSO will continue to address the substantial health-care issues Ontario is facing.
The province says as it "significantly expands" the number of surgeries being done through community surgical and diagnostic centres, it will have measures in place to "protect the stability of health human resources at public hospitals," which includes "requiring new facilities to provide detailed staffing plans as part of their application and requiring several physicians at these centres to have active privileges at their local hospital."
The provincial government also says these community surgical and diagnostic centres have been "valuable partners in responding to the pandemic and addressing the pandemic-related backlog in surgeries." Surgeries performed at these centres would be publicly funded.
There are an estimated 206,000 people waiting for surgical procedures, according to the province.
Over at the Registered Practical Nurses Association of Ontario, Martin said she doesn’t pretend to know the end game of other people, but says a private system will not be affordable.
“I do know that a privatized system is a very, very expensive system and generally does not have the outcome that a public system has,” she said.
