this Ford Administration New private clinics are being formally asked to apply to join the publicly funded healthcare system to strengthen its strategy to reduce waiting times for surgery and diagnoses.
On Monday, the Ministry of Health said it is calling for new licences from clinics that want to offer publicly funded MRI and CT scan services. Currently, there are seven clinics in Ontario that offer one or both of these services.
The government says it hopes the new clinics will provide 100,000 scans per year to Ontarians.
The future clinic will submit a staffing plan to the province detailing how it will inform patients of their rights and obtain consent, and how it will tie into existing public systems.
A government spokesman said they had not identified a specific number of clinics they wanted to issue licences to.
“The total number of new clinics will be determined based on the results of the review of the applications by the Director of the Integrated Community Health Centres in conjunction with the Ministry of Health and the review panel,” they said.
The location of the new clinic will also be determined by the review, the spokesperson said.
The call for applications will close on August 12, 2024, and the winning bidders will be announced in the fall of 2024.
“Our next step will be to increase the number of MRI and CT scans performed each year to reduce waiting times for more publicly funded surgeries and procedures, ensuring people get the care they need, when they need it,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement.
The formal call for applications is the latest step in the Ontario government's long-term plan to add more private health-care providers to the publicly funded system.
The scheme, called Your Health, was announced in early 2023 and legislation to support it was passed in the spring. Over the following year, the government worked out the details of how to manage oversight of the new private practices.
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The government said Monday it hopes the new MRI and CT scan clinics will reduce the waiting time for both scans to 28 days across the province.
“When it comes to wait times for surgery and treatment, the status quo is unacceptable,” said Jones. “That’s why our government is taking bold action to increase access to surgery and diagnostic imaging so Ontarians can get the care they need earlier, more conveniently and closer to home.”
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles says adding more private health care to Ontario's health-care system could result in people who want to use the public system having to pay more for private services.
“What we’ve seen time and again as private clinics open and expand is sales pitches,” she said. “Do they tell people how much they need to pay to get to the front of the line?”
The Ministry of Health said one of the new rules imposed on newly registered clinics is that they cannot refuse to provide publicly funded services to people who do not agree to pay for the upgrade.
Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie said the clinic expansion would further the Conservative government's “privatization agenda.”
“People are going to be going to these clinics with credit cards instead of health cards,” she said. “This is just another step in the privatization of our health care system.”
The government said construction of two more “community surgical and diagnostic centres providing gastrointestinal endoscopy and orthopaedic surgery” would begin later this summer.
— With files from The Canadian Press
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