Far too many of my constituents are going without health care, because Ottawa is short 171 family doctors. Ottawa residents who are sick, anxious about symptoms or even simply looking to renew a prescription are forced to turn to the Queensway Carleton Hospital, one of the busiest emergency departments in the province.

But this government cut funding for emergency care at the Queensway Carleton, meaning that, by April, there will be 10 fewer hours of physician coverage in the ER every single day.

Why does the Minister of Health think people in Ottawa should have to wait hours in an overstretched ER just to receive basic health care?

The minister is expanding funding for primary care, but to only a small proportion of the clinics in Ontario that have actually asked for funding and support to expand. People in Ottawa still don’t know when or if their local primary clinic is one of the clinics that will get funding, because the government is refusing to share how they’re deciding which proposals to fund and who will actually get funding.

When will this government actually support the people of Ottawa instead of leaving them in the dark?

Ottawa residents are desperately feeling the lack of primary care options. The Ontario Medical Association calculates that Ottawa needs at least 171 more family doctors in order to meet current demands. But we’re also seeing family doctors closing up practice because the conditions have become unsustainable, and unfortunately, 40% of family doctors say they are considering retiring in the next five years.

My constituents are upset, and I get it. It is incredibly frustrating, but also scary, not to have a doctor or a nurse practitioner you can turn to when you’re sick or have questions or just need a prescription renewed.

What’s even more concerning is that we’re seeing this shortage in the context of funding cuts for emergency care at the Queensway Carleton Hospital. The Queensway Carleton’s emergency department is one of the busiest in the whole province. Patients are routinely waiting hours to be seen—sometimes even just to be triaged—and yet the government is cutting funding to the Queensway Carleton ER. By April, we will be down 10 physician hours every single day in the ER. So 150,000 Ottawa residents don’t have a family doctor and have no option but to go to the ER, and now they’re going to have to sit and wait even longer to see a doctor there.

This is no way to run a health care system. It’s time for the government to take the crisis seriously and make the investments needed to make sure that every Ontario resident gets the primary health care and the emergency health care they need when they need it.