No change to OHIP health-care access

Opposition raises concerns over the government’s response to staffing shortage crisis in hospitals

Ontarians will not have to pay out of pocket for health-care services, the province’s health minister said Thursday, a day after she came under fire for refusing to rule out further privatization in the system.

Sylvia Jones was pressed on the issue during question period, as the Opposition raised concerns over the government’s response to the health-care crisis that has seen emergency departments in several hospitals close for hours or even days this summer.

“No, no, no, OHIP cards are used in the province of Ontario to fund publicly funded health-care systems — that will continue under our watch,” Jones said in response to a question by Interim NDP Leader Peter Tabuns.

On Wednesday, when asked if there could be further privatization of the province’s health system, Jones said “all options are on the table.”

When asked to clarify her comments after question period Thursday, Jones did not rule out the possibility that private corporations could have more of a role in delivering public services, which already happens in some areas of Ontario’s health-care system.

“We should not be afraid of innovation,” she told reporters. “We’ve done it well in the province of Ontario and I want to continue to encourage that innovation because it means, at the end of the day, people are going to get better service. I don’t want the status quo.”

She did not, however, provide an answer when asked if private surgical companies could be involved in addressing the backlog in surgeries created by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Large parts of Ontario’s healthcare system are already privatized, including many long-term-care homes, as well as home care and nursing agencies.

Advocates have said the emergency department closures that have been a recurring problem in recent months are largely due to nurse staffing shortages, with many health-care workers leaving the system entirely.

Smaller rural hospitals have been particularly affected by closures.

Jones said earlier this week that six emergency departments were temporarily closed last weekend.

She said the province is considering a wide variety of changes to address the hospital staffing crisis, but has not specified what those changes could be.

Tabuns said Jones is opening the door to two-tier medicine.

“Did she say that we won’t have expansion of private health care in Ontario? No, she didn’t say that, she would not say that and people should be angry about that,” he said.

Tabuns said if a private company were enlisted to help with surgeries, for example, there would be a knock-on effect to the public system, leaving it vulnerable to losing more health-care workers to those private companies.

The province is considering a wide variety of changes to address the hospital staffing crisis, but has not specified what those changes could be