SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

Ontario Assembly

43rd Parl. 1st Sess.
May 7, 2024 09:00AM
  • May/7/24 11:30:00 a.m.

As the member opposite knows, there are OHIP-covered, funded services that we continue to expand and provide in the province of Ontario.

I want to talk specifically about those individuals who, under our changes, an expansion only in cataract surgeries—we have seen the wait times for cataracts in communities decreasing dramatically. We specifically chose cataracts because it had some of the highest wait times in the province of Ontario. What does that mean? It means people who couldn’t continue to drive, who couldn’t work, who couldn’t volunteer, who couldn’t read a book to their grandchildren—by expanding cataract surgeries in four communities, in existing publicly funded, OHIP-covered divisions, we have seen a dramatic decrease in the wait times. We’re going to continue to do that because that’s what the people—

Interjections.

I’m going to give you a very specific example. Ontario invested $5 million in the Centre for Integrated and Advanced Medical Imaging, for a 3,500-square-foot facility to harness cutting-edge innovation. Hamilton Health Sciences and St. Joe’s Healthcare Hamilton, who are partnering with Mohawk College and McMaster University to harness cutting-edge technology—their improved system, a partnership between private hospitals as well as hospitals, colleges and universities, means that they have found MRIs that will enable centre staff to reduce scanning times by 50%.

That’s the kind of innovation that our government will continue to fund, because the people of Ontario deserve to have—

251 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border