We asked the following question to the provincial candidates, “What
will you do to improve the availablity of primary health care in North
Kawartha?“ We sent this question to all the parties and only
got two replies - Liberals and Greens.
Ontario Liberal Party - Jason Ward
:
I have developed an ambitious, but entirely possible, preliminary
plan for recruiting and retaining doctors, a Nurse Practitioner, and
other health care professionals to service the people in North Kawartha.
I am also determined to work hard to bring a new Community Health
Centre (CHC) to North Kawartha.
I give full credit to the Health Task Force
- North Kawartha for its ongoing hard work and dedication to this issue.
If I am elected, I intend to fully support and assist the
work of the Task Force to improve the provision of health care services
in the area.
I believe that my “North Kawartha Plan,”
which is partially based on financial incentives, will offer young, experienced
and foreign-trained doctors and other health care providers more than
a friendly, beautiful place in which to live and to raise their families.
The preliminary highlights of the North Kawartha Plan include:
- Offering Return-Service Bursaries to pre-selected Ontario
medical students. Both the Provincial government and the people of
North Kawartha should financially support the bursaries. The
bursaries, which could provide up to $25,000 per year, would be offered throughout
the medical student’s education program, with a service commitment to work
in North Kawartha within Ontario’s publicly funded heath system upon
graduation for a specified period of time.
- Offering interest-free, provincially funded loans to targeted
Ontario medical students. After graduation, the new doctors would
be eligible for full loan forgiveness if they practice in North Kawartha for
at least 10 years. If during that time an eligible doctor decides
to work elsewhere, he or she would have to pay back the loan plus accrued
interest as a percentage of the amount of time he or she did not work in North
Kawartha or service patients from North Kawartha.
- As the M.P.P., writing a letter to every senior medical
student and doctor-in-residence in Ontario inviting them to visit and to
work at Northa Kawartha and to meet with the Task Force.
- Developing other initiatives, strategies and working with
the Task Force to attract Ontario medical students, doctors and other
health care professionals, including Nurse Practitioners who would support
and work co-operatively with new and existing doctors in Northa Kawartha.
For example, the Plan calls for the Task Force to assist the visiting
students and doctors with identifying: employment opportunities for their
spouses; childcare services; the local schools; available housing; the business
community and landmarks; and, general information about North Kawartha.
- When the new Ontario Liberal government relaxes the licensing
requirements for foreign-trained physicians, identifying and contacting
foreign-trained, experienced doctors who apply for an Ontario physician
license and to invite them to visit and work in North Kawartha.
- Providing low-interest, start-up financing to young, experienced
and foreign-trained doctors who agree to set up fee-for-service medical
practices in North Kawartha, including an IT infrastructure
- Consider the possibility of offering salary positions to
family physicians who agree to practise in the area, as opposed to the
current fee-for-service model.
- If elected, the Ontario Liberal government plans to expand
the capacity of Ontario’s medical schools by 10% within 2 years.
A New North Kawartha Community Heath Centre
My Plan also represents my committment to:
- Working closely with the Task Force to fast track
its pending application for provincial funding for a new CHC in North
Kawartha.
- Unfreezing provincial funding for a new CHC.
- Ensuring the North Kawartha CHC has:
- 24-hour emergency primary and acute care services;
- 2 new doctors (see above);
- 1 Nurse Practitioner (who flourishs in a CHC environment)
- 1 Registered Nurse;
- 1 new full-time administrator/clerical assistant;
- 1 roaming medical laboratory technologist;
- 1 roaming occupational and respiratory therapist
- 1 roaming social worker, audiologist, dietician, physiotherapist
and psychologist.
The CHC would offer young and foreign-trained doctors a stable, secure
and salary-based position, as opposed to a fee-for-service model, such
as the Conservative government’s failing “Family Health Networks” model.
The FHN model has been accepted by only 4% of Ontario’s doctors since
its introduction by the Conservative government nearly four years ago.
The new doctors who practice at the North Kawartha CHC would not
incur capital start-up costs, but would be provided administrative and
clerical support.
The Nurse Practitioner at the CHC would co-operatively support
the new doctors and provide many services typically performed by doctors,
such as prescriptions, referrals and certain examinations. The Nurse
Practitioner should be capable of carrying a patient list of 1,500 to 2,000
patients.
Jason Ward
Ontario Liberal Party
Haliburton-Victoria-Brock
Tel: (705) 328 - 2613
Toll Free: 1-(866) Jason-4-You
Fax: (705) 324 - 4799
Email: jasonward@sympatico.ca
Web Site: www.jason-ward.ca
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Green Party– Douglas Smith
The more medical research delves into the mysteries of disease, the
more expensive it seems to become. Shouldn't good research point in exactly
the opposite direction, towards healthy life-styles, and towards medicines
that are barely more expensive than pure air and water? As a homeopath
I take some pride in the fact that my remedies rarely cost more than 10
cents a dose.
In my practitioner's role, I am especially
sensitive to the existence of a de facto two-tier system of health care
in Ontario. Already there is a significant stream of patients who request
alternative (i.e. non-OHIP) treatment, when all else has failed. Also there
are many who would prefer alternative care from the very beginning, except
that it means they must pay out of their own pocket.
To heed such concerns, the Green Party of Ontario
would institute a broad survey of alternative practices to determine their
cost-effectiveness. Depending on the results of this survey, the Party would
instruct access centres across the Province to direct patients, when indicated,
to qualified complementary physicians under the regime of OHIP. At
the same time we would facilitate the upgrading of alternative practitioners,
to ensure that they remain knowledgeable with regards to current practices.
djsmith@interhop.net
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