Ontario's $110M Primary Care Investment: Too Little, Too Late?

Dear colleagues,

The Government of Ontario announced $110 million in new funding to connect more Ontarians to primary health teams. While additional spending to increase access to family doctors for Ontarians is desirable, Ontario needs to be thinking several orders of magnitude higher than this, and with considerably more urgency, if we are to have any chance of getting our system of family medicine back on track.  SGFP put out a media release in response to the announcement, which generated a number of interview opportunities.

Over the past several weeks we have put out several media releases and I have had many interviews as a result. I hear from SGFP members every day that we need to do more to call attention to the crisis, and we are working hard with the OMA to do that. When 2.3 million Ontarians are without a family doctor, more and more family doctors are making the difficult decision to leave practice all the time, and the costs of running a family practice are increasingly untenable, I feel we have no choice but to continue sounding the alarm.

We will continue to press for real system change, and I will continue to keep SGFP members apprised of these efforts. Please connect with me if you have feedback or advice with respect to the crisis and our advocacy approach.  

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Regards,  Dr. David Barber Chair, SGFP