In January I wrote a submission to MPP Ernie Hardeman, Chair of Ontario’s 2025 Pre-Budget Consultations.
Dear Mr. Hardeman: My proposals for a fiscally responsible Ontario budget are the following.
Health Ministries representing the largest provincial expenditures demand critical attention:
- Please implement the “Primary Care At Home” model as proposed by Dr. Jane Philpott in her 2024 book, Health for All. My request includes that the Ontario Government support a National Primary Care Act. Primary care investments can reduce secondary and tertiary healthcare costs if supported by political will.
- The Ministry of Long-Term Care is redundant. Please collapse that ministry into the Ministry of Health given the evidence that the large majority of healthcare services are for the long haul. Alternately, place the long term facilities within the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.
- And please cut in half the planned blitz in long term care facility bed expansion in Ontario because, a) it ignores the desire of the vast majority of citizens who want other imaginative local solutions for aging in place, and b) the planned wave of long term facility construction will create a crippling tax burden for future generations.
- Health Human Resources: Support one national registration for Canadian and international healthcare graduates for prompt and efficient placement in Ontario and throughout Canada.
- Healthcare workers remuneration: Support equity in remuneration for people with similar qualifications and responsibilities working in different healthcare environments, e.g. homecare workers.
The long-term care anomaly
Many, if not the vast majority of healthcare services, are provided for long term benefit.
It strikes me that childhood vaccines are given “…to trigger your child’s natural immune response to provide long-term protection against a disease…”. Emergency appendectomies and fracture settings are long term benefits for our youth. Heart and stroke discoveries in middle age and cancer treatments for all ages, are all therapeutic treatments for the long term. And what about parents trying to homecare a 30 year old son with a disability? These are all examples of healthcare for the long haul. So of course we need long term care; it’s called… healthcare. The health system is there to help us get through life. So that is why my consultation included re-integration of the Ministry of Long Term Care into one Ministry of Healthcare.
Paul Brown
Healthnext (Volunteer advocacy for homecare & supportive housing in Stratford & area)