LILLEY: Doug Ford reduces surgical wait times, opposition complains

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In the first year of Ontario expanding access to cataract procedures in community clinics, 32,000 extra people improved their eyesight with quicker access to the procedure. Now, the Ford government wants to take that success and expand it to MRI and CT scans to bring down wait times.

The province launched a call for applications for new clinics on Monday with new licences to be issued this fall.

“When it comes to wait times for surgeries and procedures, the status quo is not acceptable,” Health Minister Sylvia Jones said in a statement announcing the changes.

The Ford government’s plan is to roll out faster access for patients who don’t need access to a hospital by using community clinics. These clinics have so far been a mixture of public and private organizations, but the patient only pays with their OHIP card, not their credit card.

Still, the usual suspects are outraged that any private-sector involvement exists in healthcare. They would rather people wait and suffer with ill health than see the private sector involved in any way.

Both NDP Leader Marit Stiles and Liberal Leader Bonnie Crombie claimed that Ford was forcing people to pull out their credit card to access health services or to get to the front of the line. That’s simply not true and these leaders should be celebrating the success of these programs, not making false claims to scare people away.

Last year, ahead of these changes coming into effect but after the licences for new cataract surgeries had been issued, I interviewed Dr. Anuj Bhargava. In addition to being the chief of ophthalmology at Ottawa’s Monfort Hospital, Dr. Bhargava performed cataract surgery at the Herzig Eye Institute.

“We have only one operating room at the Monfort hospital, which is shared by six surgeons in a week, so each of us has less than one day a week,” Dr. Bhargava told me in January 2023.

Imagine, the head of eye surgery in a major city hospital gets less than one day of operating room time per week. He described how without getting their eyes fixed, his older patients were losing their independence such as their ability to drive.

Dr. Bhargava said expanding the surgeries to community clinics would reduce wait times and that is exactly what happened for 32,000 Ontario residents.

The opposition NDP and Liberals would prefer that those 32,000 Ontario residents were still on the waiting list and that those behind them were forced to wait longer still for care. As the province looks to expand this model to MRI and CT scans, and eventually endoscopies and hip and knee surgeries, the NDP and Liberals have one goal — make you to wait longer for your care.

To them, keeping a pure but failing system is more important than allowing the private sector to partner with the public health system to deliver you timely care.

“Increasing the number of MRI and CT scans being done each year is the next step we’re taking to reduce wait times for more publicly funded surgeries and procedures, ensuring people get the care they need, when they need it,” minister Jones said.

The goal of her plan is to reduce the time between when an MRI or CT scan is ordered and when the procedure happens to and average of 28 days in every region of the province. Right now, the average wait time for an MRI in Ontario is 90 days while the average for a CT scan is 81 days.

Both of those are unacceptable times to wait.

Ford and Jones are doing something to fix this problem while Stiles and Crombie chirp from the cheap seats to try and maintain the status quo.

Ignore the critics, embrace the change and get your health treatment not only faster but in a medically acceptable period of time.

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