On February 7, 2023 the OCFP submitted a letter to the Minister of Finance outlining the OCFP’s four key policy focuses for consideration in Budget 2023. Read our Solutions for Today: Ensuring Every Ontarian Has Access to a Family Physicians.
February 7, 2023
Hon. Peter Bethlenfalvy Minister of Finance
7th Floor, Frost Block
7 Queen’s Park Cres. Toronto, ON M7A 1Y7
Dear Minister,
We would like to begin by acknowledging the recent announcement made by Minister Jones on February 2nd recognizing that family physicians are the foundation of Ontario’s healthcare system, and the statement that Ontario intends to do more to ensure that people are connected to a family physician. Ontario’s family doctors are eager to work with your government to ensure that Ontarians have access to the best possible health outcomes, and that means access first and foremost to a family doctor.
By 2025, one-in-five Ontarians may not have a family doctor. We can help the government stop that from happening and begin to reverse a decades-long trend that has seen more and more Ontarians going without access to family physicians. Evidence from around the world conclusively identifies high-performing health systems as having strong primary care foundations – anchored by family doctors – that provide accessible, cost-effective, and equitable health care for all.
The Ontario College of Family Physicians is proposing four key policy focuses for your consideration in Budget 2023 that will help build a high-performing, patient-centered healthcare system with primary care as its bedrock.
1. Enable family physicians to take on more patients, and to see them faster, by:
- Adding primary care team members who can immediately support a broad range of patient needs.
- Increasing the time that family physicians spend on direct patient care by improving the efficiency of clinical and administrative work.
2. Ensure more Ontarians have access to family doctors by fast tracking foreign-trained doctors to practice in Ontario and increasing family medicine residency spots. The Ontario Government’s commitments to creating a new practice-ready assessment program and expanding medical education are steps in the right direction.
3. Ensure Ontarians in the North, rural areas, and others in the most under-served populations have equitable access to family physicians by improving chronic and critical physician shortages in these areas.
4. Build on our current primary care models to better fit today’s population needs.
Recent announcements from your government, and from Minister Jones in particular, are very encouraging in this regard. We look forward to working with the Ontario Government and building on the Minister’s recent announcement on primary care as well as opportunities stemming from the Canada Health Transfer discussions. We want Ontario to have the best primary care system possible for Ontarians.
We know that an ongoing relationship with a family physician is a leading indicator for better health outcomes for all Canadians. That’s the kind of Ontario healthcare system that we think our policy asks can help build.
Please find a copy of our plan “Solutions for Today: Ensuring Every Ontarian Has Access to a Family Physician” here. We look forward to speaking with you more about our policy proposals.
Sincerely,
Kimberly Moran
CEO, Ontario College of Family Physicians