October 30, 2024
Gélinas – How many crises can the Minister of health create?
QUEEN’S PARK – This morning during Question Period, NDP Health Critic France Gélinas (Nickel Belt) reminded Health Minister Sylvia Jones of the hardship her Ministry is inflicting on Ontario’s patients.
“Palliative care physicians from all over the province are still reaching out to me about the crisis in homecare medical supplies. This Minister’s decision to hand off the “last mile” medical supplies delivery to Bayshore is leaving palliative care patients in pain. It is also hurting small business who for years have been handling medical supplies delivery to their community, to their neighbors and who lost those contracts.
This Minister’s decision is bad for patients, it is bad for small business. Speaker, how could this Minister have made a worse decision for Ontario’s patients and small businesses?”
First reported in the Hamilton Spectator, homecare patients in Ontario have been forced to buy their own supplies on Amazon due to shortages. Those needing pain medications, morphine pumps and needles have been left in pain.
“Catherine in Cornwall had her prescription renewed for a full year before her doctor retired a year ago. Her doctor knew walk in clinic would not renew it. She has spent the last 11 months trying to find a doctor, unsuccessfully. I would suggest the Minister ask her colleague the MPP for Stormont Dundas, he knows all about it.
My constituent Yvon died of Cardiac arrest last spring at age 60, 2 years after retirement. His doctor retired in 2020, his wife Stasha is certain that if he had access to a doctor he would still be alive.
Will the Minister admit today that by her actions and decisions, she is also responsible the crisis in primary care?”
According to the Ontario College of Family Physicians 2.3 million Ontarians are currently without a family doctor or Nurse Practitioner; they expect that number to grow to 4.4 million by 2026.