Ontario Physician Group Shares Priorities for Improving the Health Care System | The Canadian News

TORONTO – Reduced waiting times for patients; expand mental health, addiction and home care services; and preparing for the next pandemic are among the top priorities of a group representing Ontario physicians.

The Ontario Medical Association shared its recommendations for improving the province’s healthcare system in a new report released today.

It also highlights the need to strengthen public health units and assign a linked team of healthcare providers to each patient.

The group is asking political parties to include their recommendations on their platforms prior to the provincial elections in June.

He says the backlog of services from the pandemic must be addressed along with reducing the long-standing problem of patient wait times.

The report calls for adequate funding to address the backlog, ensure services are fully staffed, educate people about healthy lifestyles, offer more services outside of hospitals, and improve data collection.

To respond to the “tsunami of new patients” seeking mental health care, the report says there must be more affordable and publicly funded services in people’s communities.

It recommends establishing standards across the province for mental health and addiction services, more funding for those services, providing mental health support to health workers, and increasing the number of monitored drug use sites.

Investing more funds in home care recruitment and retention is recommended as a priority that the report says will save space in hospital beds and reduce wait times for other patients.

It also recommends ensuring that people without GPs can access home care, reducing red tape and providing tax breaks for families employing full-time caregivers.

The medical association says the province should start preparing for the next pandemic by making a provincial pandemic plan mandatory and sending enough resources to Ontario Public Health and public health units.

A section of the report dedicated to specific concerns in Northern Ontario was released earlier this week.

The medical group says it supports calls by prime ministers for the federal government to increase the Transfer of Health Canada to 35 percent of health spending in the provinces and territories.

The medical association says it developed the report with input from physicians, healthcare organizations, community leaders, and thousands of Ontario residents.