The Ontario Union of Family Physicians (OUFP) has launched a petition calling for the immediate resignation of Health Minister Sylvia Jones following her recent comments that “there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians” and that “retention and recruitment is not a major concern.”
The comments come as the OMA, which represents Ontario's doctors, has repeatedly warned that more than two million residents don't have a family doctor and thousands of physician jobs are going unfilled.
See: There is no concern about a 'diminished supply' of doctors in Ontario: ministry
The petition was started by Dr. Ramsey Hijazi, an Ottawa-based physician, on behalf of The Ontario Union of Family Physicians: “
These comments are insensitive and dangerous,” Dr. Hijazi asserts. “They also signal that the Ontario government has abandoned addressing the healthcare needs of Ontarians and is akin to denying to recognize Ontarians’ basic right to access universal healthcare.”
For the past 10 years, Hijazi has been a family physician, but in February he left his Ottawa area practice for a hospital job saying it’s becoming too challenging to keep up with the financial and administrative demands of running his own practice.
Hijazi had 1,500 patients.
According to the petition, 2.3 million people in Ontario do not have access to a family doctor and/or have lost or will soon lose their family doctor due to inadequate funding and increasing administrative burden. The Ontario College of Family Physicians projects that by the year 2026, 1 in 4 Ontarians will not have a family doctor.
The petition urges people to write to provincial policymakers to take action using the OUFP template.
On May 6 the Physician Services Agreement (the physician payment negotiation) entered into Arbitration between the Ontario Medical Association (OMA) and the Ministry of Health (MOH).
"We have now learned through the publicly released details of the Ministry of Health's Arbitration briefs that the government has no intentions of taking appropriate steps to address the family medicine crisis in Ontario. In fact, the Minister of Health Sylvia Jones’ response to the worsening crisis in family medicine is to outright deny there is any crisis at all." says the petition.
"Our current healthcare system is simply unacceptable. Ontario deserves better."
