In less than 24 months, one out of every four people in Ontario will be without a family doctor. That’s unacceptable. Ontario needs 3,500 family doctors and we need them now.
Residents of rural and northern Ontario have worse health outcomes, shorter life expectancy and poorer access to health care compared to the rest of the province.
Between July 2022 and June 2023, Emergency Departments across Ontario temporarily closed a total of 203 times in 23 different hospitals.
Access to lab tests, medical imaging (MRI, CT, ultrasound, PET), specialists and surgeries is hampered due to staff shortages and the lack of a co-ordinated pathway to get to these vital services.
Ontario needs a strategy that ensures everyone has access to a family doctor and specialist care, and it needs to attract new doctors while keeping physicians practising until retirement.
The use of tools, such as AI, to decrease administrative work and the ability to fund innovations in care result in decreased hospital stays, improved outcomes and lower costs to the system.