Archive for the ‘Health Delivery System’ Category

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Not adding up: Surgical and diagnostic privatization in Ontario

Thursday, October 15th, 2026

The Ontario government’s policy direction favours for-profit—rather than public—delivery of surgeries and medical imaging… If the privatization of surgeries and diagnostic procedures was sound health care policy, then the evidence would support this direction—but it does not… Instead, the provincial government should… Stop privatizing surgeries and medical imaging; Immediately increase public hospital funding and service capacity; and, Commit to evidence-based public system improvement strategies.

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How Ontario’s private clinics are draining taxpayer dollars and staff from public health care

Thursday, October 1st, 2026

Funding private clinics drains our public system, poaching staff and siphoning taxpayer dollars from front-line care. If interprofessional health teams are to succeed, the province must guarantee competitive salaries to staff them. Nurse practitioners need immediate provincial funding… Private clinics cost Ontario more, threaten patient safety and increase public wait times. They erode equity, accessibility and universality — the very foundation of the Canada Health Act.

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Hospitals get $1.1B infusion from Ford government as critics warn it’s not enough

Saturday, March 28th, 2026

Ontario’s public hospitals are getting a $1.1-billion boost in Thursday’s budget amid warnings the extra money will barely cover deficits as they struggle to improve patient wait times… Putting the system on a sound financial footing would require a cash infusion of $2.7 billion… “Costs for the sector have been rising by about six per cent per year, primarily due to Ontario’s growing population, its aging population and inflation, in general”…

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What’s the future of virtual health care in Ontario? Despite funding cutback, it may have taken root

Monday, March 23rd, 2026

“Physicians aren’t able to provide the same level of care at a 50 per cent reduced rate,” Cherniak says. Still, three years after Ontario’s cutback, virtual care is catching on… even without doctors: Ontario Health’s annual report from a year ago cites as a highlight that more than 31,800 patients “connected to nurse practitioners through regional virtual urgent care clinics, with only four per cent referred to emergency departments.”

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Ontario to miss federal deadline for publicly funding nurse practitioners

Monday, March 23rd, 2026

Health Minister Sylvia Jones pushed the federal government years ago to close what she called a loophole in the Canada Health Act that allowed some nurse practitioner clinics in the province to charge patients fees for primary care… The government has done that… It has given provinces and territories the April 1 deadline — but Ontario won’t be ready.

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Ford government to end funding for supervised consumption sites, advocates say — including two in Toronto

Thursday, March 19th, 2026

… the province is providing the sites 90 days’ notice “in order to support an orderly transition for clients so they can access other community health services… The sites are being asked to provide a plan for how they will transition clients to other community health services and realign their services to promote rehabilitation.

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I’m a doctor. Here are five overlooked ways the Ontario government is making our ERs more crowded, not less

Wednesday, March 18th, 2026

When Doug Ford was elected premier in 2018, he promised to “end hallway medicine.” But by 2024, the problem had doubled to some 2,000 Ontarians lying on stretchers in hospital hallways… Good health is impossible without stable housing… Shutting down all supervised consumption sites… Underfunded nursing… Expanding for‑profit medicine… [and] Neglecting home care and keeping people in hospital beds

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‘It’s chronic disease, stupid!’ The central challenge facing health care

Friday, February 20th, 2026

A well-integrated interprofessional health-care system, rooted in primary care and configured to support patients with chronic conditions and their informal caregivers, has the potential to improve health outcomes, curb health-care spending and reduce reliance on hospital care… Government policies that fail to meaningfully support public health and social safety nets ultimately drive higher chronic disease rates and greater downstream health-care costs.

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Ontario needs more psychologists. These changes finally address the long-standing obstacles to care

Thursday, February 12th, 2026

Across Canada, other provincial and territorial regulators have safely relied on shorter, well-designed supervision periods for many years. Ontario already recognizes psychologists trained under these models through Canadian labour mobility rules that require provinces and territories to register professionals who are already registered elsewhere in Canada, even if their training followed different, shorter, timelines.

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For women who live on the margins, health care is often out of reach. Here’s how we can build a bridge to access

Wednesday, February 11th, 2026

A community health worker (CHW) is typically a trusted member of the local community who understands the challenges of those who are sick or socially excluded. With targeted training, CHWs can conduct basic health screenings for conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, breast and cervical cancer, and reproductive and mental health problems.  Importantly, CHWs act as bridges to primary care physicians… This approach builds trust, continuity and access…

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