Ontario's got a three-step plan? I've got three questions

First question is, will this plan lead to reduced wait times? We know, as of today, there are only 10 independent health facilities in the whole province providing publicly funded outpatient surgery and one private hospital doing the same. Yet, there are over 100 publicly funded hospitals proving outpatient surgeries throughout the province. These public hospitals typically tun a full suite of operating theatres only about 40 hours a week. To me, it makes more sense to better staff and fund public hospitals to provide more outpatient care, or to partner with these hospitals to create not-for-profit focus factories outside of the hospital to get through more of these cases, than to divert public funds to private enterprises. Number two, will this plan actually save money? According to the Auditor General’s report from 2021, patients who received OHIP-funded surgeries in private, independent health facilities were more likely to be upsold non-OHIP-funded services that may or may not be medically necessary. Furthermore, independent health facilities that have been asked to apply for some of these licenses are to be remunerated at higher rate by the government for the same procedure, versus what a hospital gets paid to perform the procedure. So, it’s not clear to me that the taxpayer, at the end of the day, will pay any less. Third, where are the people going to come from—without cannibalizing staffing for public hospitals? You need surgeons, anesthesiologists and you also need nurses in the operating room and in the recovery room. You also need people to turn the rooms over and stock the rooms. Those people work in hospitals right now. And unless the government plans on training a whole new group of people, it’s unclear to me how this plan will not reduce staffing levels in public hospitals, which we already know is a major issue. Hopefully the government can attend to some of these questions and reassure Ontarians that their plan will save money, be equitable and also reduce wait-times. Dr. Michael Warner is a practicing intensivist and Medical Director of Critical Care at the Michael Garron Hospital.

Ontario's got a three-step plan? I've got three questions

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