Ma question est pour la ministre de la Santé.

Last week, the Canadian press received access-to-freedom-of-information documents from the Minister of Health that said Ontario’s lack of a long COVID strategy has led to “fragmented” clinics that offer little to no support to patients. The health ministry’s strategic policy branch wrote: “Ontario does not have a coordinated approach to care for patients with a post-COVID-19 condition.”

My question to the minister: Aside from billing codes—can the Minister of Health tell the 750,000 Ontarians living with long COVID where they can access the care they so desperately need?

Again, I quote from a briefing that the minister received: “While some providers are responding to the immediate demand for post-COVID care, these offerings are insufficient, fragmented and unsustainable without dedicated funding. This model is not sustainable and could result in little to no support for Ontarians with” post-COVID needs, the briefing warned the minister.

These clinics are currently at risk of closure due to the lack of funding. The minister’s briefing documents said, and everybody agrees, that a provincially coordinated approach would be most effective.

Minister, where is the dedicated funding for a provincially coordinated approach to care for the 750,000 Ontarians with long COVID, like BC, Alberta and Quebec are already funding?

With the greatest of respect, the member opposite is dismissing the fact that we’ve actually worked with the Ontario Medical Association to make sure that there are appropriate billing codes for our primary care practitioners who are treating and assisting individuals with long COVID. It is an important piece to make sure that individuals with long COVID are not left abandoned by our health care system—which is not going to happen under this government. To suggest that this is a dismissive and not important piece to ensure that individuals who are suffering with long COVID have the support that they need in the province of Ontario, I think, shows a great deal of disrespect to those individuals.

There is excellent work happening, in our research hospital facilities as well as at our universities, to study and assess the impacts of long COVID. As we develop and see how those outcomes continue, we will be there, as we have been through the entire pandemic, to make sure that they have the resources to continue to serve these important long COVID patients.