SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
September 8, 2022 09:00AM
  • Sep/8/22 10:30:00 a.m.

We have always said that we need to look at these challenges in a way that goes outside of what we are currently doing in the province of Ontario. As the member opposite knows, we do have clinics, like the Shouldice Hospital, that currently operate and have operated for decades in the province of Ontario. We will continue to work with those partners—all partnerships. We’ve seen innovative models with community care paramedics. We’ve seen innovative models with 911 off-loads, with dedicated off-load nurse practitioners who are able to take those emergency department patients so that the paramedics can go back out onto the road.

All of these are innovations, new ways of approaching an existing problem that has been plaguing our health care system for, frankly, years and years. We’re going to make sure that those innovations are available to all communities. I’ve often spoken about the paramedic program that’s available in 49 areas. We’re going to expand that, because it’s working.

We’re working with our partners. When they bring forward ideas and suggestions that we see have an opportunity to improve the health human resources in Ontario, we’re doing that. This is not an Ontario-exclusive issue. We’re seeing it in jurisdictions across Canada—indeed, the world. But we’re making sure that where we have opportunities for engagement, for improvements, we’re doing that, and, of course, most recently that’s the college of nurses with our internationally trained educators.

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  • Sep/8/22 10:40:00 a.m.

I am proud of the fact that our five-point plan that we announced last month with the Minister of Long-Term Care has already started to bear fruit. We’ve seen that with a willingness and, frankly, excitement from both the College of Nurses and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario where they are going to expedite. And they’ve brought forward additional ideas on how we can get those internationally educated health care workers here, working in Ontario. We’re doing that because we know we want to have the best health care system in the province of Ontario. We’re doing that by working with our hospital partners, our nursing partners, our paramedics.

You talk about individual situations. We’re actually coming up with ideas. We’re listening to the experts in the field, and we’re acting on those ideas.

It is 739,000 nursing visits. It is 157,000 nursing shift hours. It is 117,000 therapy visits, including physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology in community. It is 2,118,000 hours of personal support services in community and 236,000 other types of home care visits. It is precisely why we, as a government, have made that investment of $1 billion in community care programs in the province of Ontario.

It is, frankly, disappointing that the member opposite does not see the value of that and did not support it.

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