By Pepper Parr
BURLINGTON, ON August 1, 2012 According to a press release from the Ontario Medical Association – a lobby that “represents the political, clinical and economic interests of the province’s medical profession.” , the provincial governments plan to unilaterally cut $1.1 billion in health programs and fees will force wait times for medical procedures to go up and patient access to care to go down. That is the clear message a panel of local doctors will deliver to concerned Burlington citizens tonight at a town hall meeting.
They don’t tell you where the Town Hall meeting is taking place nor do they tell you who the concerned doctors are. The do provide quotes from a surgeon and a family physician. No Burlington contacts for either doctor were provided.
“In its most recent annual report, the Burlington area local health integration network missed 12 of 14 performance benchmarks for patient care, including longer wait times for cataract surgery, hip and knee replacements, and MRI exams. Wait times for all four of these procedures increased from the previous year and, as a result of these cuts, could continue to increase. More than 21,000 physicians are being negatively affected by just the first round of the McGuinty government cuts, including the physicians who perform these tests and procedures.
By “negatively affected” the doctors mean they will not earn as much as they would like to earn.
What our doctors are paid is determined through honest, transparent negotiations between the provincial government and the Ontario Medical Association that represent the doctors. The OMA has begun using scare tactics to mislead the public – they can do better than that.
“In addition to longer waits and reduced access to care, the planned cuts will also mean patients who still don’t have a family doctor will either wait longer to find one or won’t be able to find one at all. Information recently released by the Ontario Medical Association reveals that more than 927,000 patients in Ontario, including 132,000 children, still do not have a family doctor, and the province is short more than 1,000 doctors. A recent Nanos Research survey shows 41 percent of Ontario’s doctors would consider moving to a more welcoming jurisdiction and 33 percent would consider retiring early if the government cuts continue.
The nice thing is that these doctors can afford to retire early.
The government is being fiscally prudent with both the teachers and the doctors in Ontario. They would of course like to earn more; teachers would like to be able to bank those sick days, doctors would like to see increases to their fee schedules. But every dollar that a doctor or a teacher gets is a dollar that comes out of your pocket.
Dr. Ved Tandan, a surgeon says “Ontario doctors want to provide the best patient care possible. For my patients, wait times are already too long, but they are bound to get even longer if the cuts to health programs and fees are allowed to continue.”
Is Dr. Tandan saying he will not continue to manage the workload he has if he is not paid more? Then we will bring in more doctors from other jurisdictions and have then take up the work load Dr. Tandan doesn’t want to handle
What he is saying is the family doctors will not be paid as much as they want to be paid. What they are paid is something the doctors have to negotiate with the government. Using scare tactics to sway public opinion has been used by the medical profession before, hopefully the public will see their comments for what they are. They have little to do with your health and more to do with how big a piece of the pie the doctors get.
