Dear Sylvia Jones, here’s how to make healthcare more convenient

Congratulations on winning the last election and being re-appointed as health minister. Being health minister is the toughest job in government. I sincerely mean now, as I wrote before, that all of us should hope you are successful. Ontario deserves the healthiest possible population.Of course, that still won’t stop me from giving you advice (whether you want it or not).I’ve noticed that you place a really high value on making sure that healthcare is “convenient.” Your government even calls the overall program “A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care.” Your talking points in the press always mention “convenient.” Even the second major outline for healthcare uses that word.I would suggest that rather a lot of your healthcare platform is based on making people happy by giving them what they want and making things easier for them. For example, your boss, Premier Doug Ford, when talking about the expanded scope of practice that allowed pharmacists to prescribe treatments for minor ailments, focused almost exclusively on the fact that it was one of the most popular things your government has ever done. The public was satisfied, so it must be a good thing.Now I appreciate that you don’t have a healthcare background. If you did, you would know that convenient healthcare and patient satisfaction in healthcare actually have a negative correlation with healthcare outcomes. Essentially, when patient satisfaction with the healthcare system goes up, the healthcare outcomes get worse. A study published in Medscape showed that focusing on patient satisfaction led to 12% higher hospital readmission rates, 9% higher healthcare costs and 26% higher mortality rates.Basically, focusing on convenience and satisfaction in healthcare costs more, makes people sicker and kills more people.However, at this point, I doubt that I can get you to shift away from this philosophy. So, I have an idea that will make healthcare much more convenient for people. Something that will reduce the amount of travelling back and forth that people do and will allow them to quickly and easily get their healthcare needs taken care of in one spot.It’s time for you to amend or revoke regulation 114/94 under the 1991 Medicine Act. This prohibits physicians from selling medications to patients. My sincere thanks to OHIPs former lawyer, Perry Brodkin, for pointing this out to me on X.How will this be convenient? Well, right now, when a patient goes to see a physician for, let’s say high blood pressure, the patient will get assessed by their family doctor, and based on their medical history, an appropriate medication will be chosen for them. They will then drive to the pharmacy with that prescription. The pharmacy will take however long it takes for them to fill out their prescription, and after a period of waiting, the patient will get their needed medication.By allowing physicians to have their own dispensary, a patient will now go to the physician’s office, and if a prescription medication is deemed necessary, they can just purchase it from the physician’s office right then and there. It saves them an extra drive, and perhaps even parking lot fees depending on where they go. This will, of course, be extremely convenient for the patient.What’s that you say? Isn’t this a conflict of interest? I mean, if a physician is now able to sell the drugs after making a diagnosis, wouldn’t it encourage physicians to prescribe more medications?Um, can I ask why that didn’t seem to bother you when the pharmacists were allowed to expand the scope of their practices by you? Pharmacists now make an assessment for certain minor illnesses, get paid to do that by the government, determine what in their opinion the right treatment is, and then sell the patient the drugs at a profit. (This is what naturopaths and some chiropractors do as well, but that’s a whole other story.)What’s that you say again? Pharmacists have to abide by a certain code of conduct from their college. They are bound by their code of ethics to act in the best interests of their patients. Um, okay. You do know that physicians also have a college that we answer to, right? You do also know that physicians also have a code of ethics? That we all took an oath to do no harm to our patients?Might I ask exactly what the difference is between these two scenarios?Of course, while most patients would be happy for this convenience, I imagine not everyone will be happy. I suspect (Shoppers Drug Mart bigshot) Galen Weston would be quite annoyed if you did this. But hey, look at the bright side, at least you won’t have to deal with some miserable crotchety old country doctor spouting off in the media wondering who exactly the health minister was in this province.Look, at the end of the day, for me, it’s healthcare outcomes that matter the most. I want patients to have the best possible results for themselves and healthcare as a whole in Ontario. But if you are going to insist on “convenience” then at least do it in a way that’s fair to all of the healthcare professions.Change or amend the 1991 Medicine Act to make life a little easier for the patients.Yours truly,An Old Country DoctorP.S. While you’re at it, don’t forget to direct your OHIP Bureaucrats to not seek repayment from Dr. Elaine Ma. Don’t think doctors in Ontario have forgotten about this situation.Dr. Sohail Gandhi is a former president of the OMA and opinions are his and not necessarily the opinions of the OMA Board. This article is a reprint from his blog site: justanoldcountrydoctor.com.

Dear Sylvia Jones, here’s how to make healthcare more convenient

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