Doctors Address Wait Times Crisis
at Queen’s Park ‘Not A Second Longer’

#LSN_Health  DrShawn Whatley, “Not a Second Longer” is a call to action to fight poor government decision-making

TORONTO, ONTARIO  March 27, 2018  (LSN)  Dr. Shawn Whatley, President of the Ontario Medical Association, is at Queen’s Park this morning to highlight the need for government to work with Ontario’s doctors given the state of our healthcare system.

The OMA is looking for a working relationship with the government to get moving on fixing issues like wait times and our advertising campaign is exactly what doctors in Ontario are hearing from our patients: ‘Not A Second Longer.’

More than 10 years ago, the current government promised to develop and deliver a wait time strategy which would reduce wait times for treatment in specific “priority areas” – namely in cataract, hip and knee replacement surgical procedures. Fast forward a decade, and the wait times for many of these “priority areas” continue to get worse. This is unacceptable.

We are here today to ask whoever forms government on June 7th, to pledge to work with doctors, nurses and health care professionals to provide patients with the health care they deserve.

Quick Notes  By 2041, 1 in 4 Ontarians will be over the age of 65 – this means the system needs to be prepared. Whatley says that government simply doesn’t have an option but to work with frontline healthcare providers, to find real, tangible solutions to these problems.  According to Health Quality Ontario, the current wait for a long-term care bed in Ontario is 149 days. In some communities, like Ottawa, it’s almost two and a half years.  The operating budgets for hospitals in Ontario were frozen from 2012 – 2017. Last year we saw a 3% increase to the total 2017-18.  More than 12,000 children and youth are waiting up to 18 months for mental health treatment. Some patients are waiting up to 6 days for a mental health bed in hospital.

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ABOUT THE OMA: Representative of Ontario’s physicians, we advocate for the well-being of our members, the health of Ontarians, and provide leadership for an accessible, sustainable, high quality health-care system. The OMA provides effective representation on behalf of more than 40,000 physicians, residents and medical students.