Columnists
You want to do what? Where?
I’m going to paraphrase a Native American saying, “Only a fool would cut the top off a blanket, sew it to the bottom and think they had made the blanket longer.” The original saying was in reference to the supposed folly of Daylight Savings Time. I’m going to scramble that saying a little bit more and say, “Only Doug Ford would take Medical Professionals out of accessible, public health settings, put them in expensive private settings and say he’d solved the Medical Professional shortage.” Like the number of hours in a day, the number of Medical Professionals didn’t change. Ford’s proposal isn’t to increase the number of nurses, doctors and medical technicians. His proposal just moves people around while he puts his healthcare privatization plan into effect. He thinks he’s going to slip one by us, but many of us beg to differ.
So, here we are in the midst of a healthcare crisis and our Provincial Premier is offering silly “remedies” for what ails us as regards Provincial healthcare. As it stands, many people living in Ontario do not have access to a family physician. On the other hand, a lot family physicians in Ontario have far too many patients on their files. Many people living in Ontario are afraid to go to the ER when they really have a medical emergency, because they don’t want to die alone, in a hallway, waiting for help from overworked, stressed out, outnumbered healthcare system. Let’s face it, they’d rather take their chances at home. Die in a hallway waiting, you say? Yep, people are dying waiting for medical assistance. In August of 2022 an analysis of Ontario Health records showed a 43 per cent increase in deaths of people waiting for surgery, a 38 per cent increase in patients who died waiting for a CT scan and a 23 per cent increase in those who died waiting for an MRI. Those numbers don’t include the people who actually die in hospitals waiting for emergency care.
I am one of those very fortunate people who actually has a family doctor. For a very brief period of time, after our former family doctor retired, we were in a scary Limbo kind of place. It wasn’t a good place at all. Now, if I feel the need to see someone for professional medical care I don’t have to wait for weeks to see the doctor or a nurse practitioner. My family doctor is young, she cares, she’s kind, her staff are wonderful people and her practice is here, in the County. My family doctor is accessible. What good ole Dougie is proposing would make this kind of basic healthcare inaccessible to even more people. “Hospitals will lose staff and wait times for urgent care will increase if the Premier is allowed to open privately operated, independent surgical centres to clear the backlog from the COVID-19 pandemic,” states the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario. But what does the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario know? Obviously their understanding of healthcare is no match to Mr. Ford’s wisdom and hands-on experience in the field of healthcare. Doug is, after all, a professional in that he gets paid to do what he does. It is getting difficult to separate the public servant he actually is from the business person that he shouldn’t be while he’s in service to the public. I’m not being naive when I say I think there’s more to what Mr. Ford proposes for this province with regard to healthcare than meets the eye. Pandering has never been an attractive trait, and here we are with a Premier who panders to his big-business pals.
I think it’s time the Premier sat down with the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (heck, he could bring along someone who could help him with the big words and grown-up stuff) and actually listen to the people who know what they’re talking about. Or perhaps Dougie could try to get an appointment with an ENT to find out if he’s got a hearing problem or if it’s just a listening problem. I understand the waiting list to see a specialist is about eighteen months—not because there isn’t a private clinic/surgery alternative, but because there is a shortage of healthcare professionals.
Ya see, Dougie boy, it isn’t about the “where” it’s about the “how many”, and we ain’t got nearly enough to go around.
Comments (0)