Family doctor group calls for Ontario health minister’s resignation over ‘slap in the face’ comments

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The Union of Family Physicians of Ontario (OUFP) is calling for the resignation of Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones after the Ministry of Health suggested recruitment and retention of doctors in Ontario is “not a major concern”.

The group said the comments from the ministry are “insensitive and dangerous” during a period in which family medicine is in crisis.

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The ministry made the argument as part of arbitration with the Ontario Medical Association over physician compensation.

The argument comes at a time when more than two million Ontario residents are without family physicians – a number that is expected to double in the coming years – as physicians choose not to go into family medicine, or leave it.

The ministry also wrote in its arguments that it would “illustrate there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians”. The province is negotiating with the Ontario Medical Association for the next agreement which determines how doctors are compensated. Talks have gone to arbitration.

Doctors say take home income for primary care physicians in Ontario has dropped by close to 20 per cent over the past four years when inflation is taken into account and has been stagnant for longer.

The group calling itself the Ontario Union of Family Physicians was formed last year to draw attention to the plight of family physicians and fight for better compensation and working conditions. The group’s aim is to make family medicine more sustainable and to attract more doctors.

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This week, the organization issued a petition calling for Jones’ resignation. Ottawa-based Dr. Ramsey Hijazi, a founder of OUFP, said the comments signal that the Ontario government has abandoned addressing the health care needs of Ontarians and is akin to denying to recognize Ontarians’ basic right to access universal health care.

“We have now learned through the publicly released details of the Ministry of Health’s arbitration briefs that the government has no intentions on taking appropriate steps to address the family medicine crisis in Ontario. In fact, the Minister of Health Sylvia Jones’ response to the worsening crisis in family medicine is to outright deny there is any crisis at all,” wrote the OUFP on its Change.org petition calling for Jones’ resignation. As of Friday, close to 800 people had signed the petition.

The group called Jones’s comments a slap in the face to Ontarians, “particularly to the 2.3 million in Ontario who do not have access to a family doctor and for those who have recently or will soon lose their family doctor due to inadequate funding and increasing administrative burden.”

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The Ontario College of Family Physicians projects that one in four Ontario residents will not have a family doctor by 2026.

When Jones was asked about the arguments, she told reporters the ministry was not saying retention is not a big issue or that there is no doctor shortage.

She added that Ontario physicians are a “really important part of our health-care system and we’ll continue to work with them to grow the workforce.”

She added that the province has done that by committing to open two new medical schools and expanding residency positions.”

This year, residencies in family medicine went unfilled, a signal, say family doctors, that the practice of primary care medicine is no longer sustainable in the province.

-With files from CP

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