This afternoon we’re talking about a motion that will improve the lives and save the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Ontarians. Having a family physician, having a family doctor, changes people’s lives. This is where the health promotion discussions happen. When you don’t have a family physician, there’s nobody to encourage you to stop smoking, there’s nobody to talk to you about how much alcohol you drink, there’s nobody to talk to you about healthy weight, healthy food, exercise. Those are all discussions—we call them “health promotion discussions”—that you have with a family physician, that you have with your family doctor. When you don’t have one, things change for the worse really quickly.

People already know that 40,000 of the people I represent do not have access to primary care; they do not have a family doctor. When the rate of smoking in Ontario is at about 12%, the rate of smoking in my riding is at 28%. Why? Because people don’t have access to a family physician. Why? Because people don’t have access to have those discussions that people who have access are able to do.

What happens when you don’t have those discussions about health promotion? Well, we know that one out of two smokers will end up dying from having smoked all their lives. They will end up, more than likely, with lung cancer—I don’t wish that upon anybody—ending up in the hospital, ending up in the cancer treatment centre, ending up using up resources.

We’ve all lived through the pandemic, when, for a time, people were afraid to go to the hospital; they were afraid to go to their family doctors or other primary care providers because of everything they were hearing about the pandemic, and they wanted to stay home and stay safe. We saw what that meant. It meant that a whole bunch of people did not have early detection of disease and sickness. We have the knowledge and skills in Ontario; we know how to detect those early, and we know how to treat them early. But if you don’t have access to primary care, you’ll wait till you are sick with some pretty severe symptoms before you go and wait 36 hours at Health Sciences North, in the emergency room, because it usually takes over a day—if you’re lucky, 26 hours. More than likely, it will take a day and a half before you’re seen, because Health Sciences North will see all of the life-and-death cases before you—you’re not a life-and-death; you just haven’t been feeling very good. And then we realize that you have stage 4 lung cancer because you did not have a primary care doctor to look after you.

We talk about health promotion. We also talk about disease prevention. We talk about chronic disease management. Many, many people have high blood pressure. Many people have COPD. Many people have diabetes. If all of those are well managed, you will be able to live a full life with minimum needs of the health care system, but you need to be followed by a primary care doctor, you need to be followed by a family physician; otherwise, things derail pretty quickly. But for 2.3 million Ontarians—the stats will apply to them like everybody else: 18% of them will have diabetes, 50% of them will have high blood pressure. I forget the stats for COPD, but it’s very high, too. They don’t have access to chronic disease management. What happens when you don’t have access to chronic disease management? Well, the disease progresses, gets worse. This is something that family physicians do all the time. They do it well. They keep people well and out of the overcrowded emergency rooms.

Do you want to have the biggest impact on decreasing demand on emergency rooms? Pass this motion. Give everybody access to primary care. The college of family physicians is ringing the alarm bell. Not only were we at 2.2 million when we tabled this motion; we’re now at 2.3 million Ontarians, and the numbers will double.

We know we are in a crisis right now. There are solutions that have been endorsed by the college of family physicians, that are endorsed by everybody who works within primary care.

Let’s get rid of some of the paperwork. We know how to do this. How do you do this? You let primary care physicians, family doctors work within an interdisciplinary team. You give them the support they need to do that paperwork. It takes a long time for physicians to review every single blood work—you’ve seen 100 patients in your week. There’s a chance that you spend the weekend looking at the results that come in from the lab. A nurse working with you could very well do that for you and flag for you the one that needs to be looked at because he or she is not too sure. It’s the same thing with sending referrals to specialists; somebody on your team could easily do this.

It’s the same thing with family physicians working on their own—it is really hard to provide quality care. I don’t wish harm upon anybody—but you’ve lost a loved one? A talk with a social worker will help you an awful lot. You’ve been diagnosed with diabetes? A talk with a dietitian, a nutritionist would help an awful lot. You’ve had that chronic back pain? Talk with a physiotherapist. That will help an awful lot.

Bring family doctors into interdisciplinary teams. Give them the support they need to focus on what they do well, while being part of a team. Every physician in Ontario who goes to school right now learns to be a family doctor as part of a team.

What are we waiting for? Those 2.2 million people cannot wait. Those 2.2 million Ontarians are at risk. Their health is at risk. Their lives are at risk. The overcrowding in our hospitals and the long wait-lists in our emergency rooms—all of that is at risk. All of that could change. All we need to do is pass this motion and act upon it. You will save lives. You will improve the lives of millions of Ontarians.

There is nothing wrong with having new medical schools. There’s nothing wrong with increasing the amount of people who can apply to those medical schools. We’re all for this. But it takes seven to eight years to form a new family physician—I’m not sure we have six, seven, eight years to wait before they come on-line. Attracting more nurses to Ontario—we’re all for it too.

But you need to fund interdisciplinary care, so that those 2.2 million people gain access. Will you do this this afternoon?