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Colleagues,
I want to thank all of you who attended the TeleTown Hall last night. I hear your anger. I hear your frustration. I hear your fatigue.
Over the past five weeks, you have all changed your practice styles. You have put yourselves in high risk situations. You have isolated yourselves from your friends. Many of you are even staying separately from your family if you work in high risk areas.
The public has noticed. The support for physicians amongst the public has never been higher. The public trusts us to make health care decisions, to look after themselves and their loved ones, and to give the best possible advice on health care. Many physicians have been the recipients of extra kind words and gestures from their patients, thanking them for all they do.
All of that is well deserved.
Unfortunately, the government does not share this view of physicians. As discussed last night, they are unwilling to take action on not only telephone codes, but on stabilization of health care funding. This will leave many physicians with little or no income for two or three months.
This is unacceptable to me. It is unacceptable to the OMA Negotiations Task Force (that has been working day and night on your behalf). It is unacceptable to the Board. It is unacceptable to the OMA.
How intransigent is government? Well, let’s look at just one issue, the telephone codes. When the OMA was informed (through the media!) that there would be a delay in paying for the codes, the NTF immediately sent the following to the Ministry. It clearly outlined that physicians should simply bill regular codes while the OHIP computers are programmed. Thus far, even though the solution is revenue neutral – the Ministry has refused to accept this.
Regrettably the Ministry has been equally intransigent with the NTF on every other issue that we have been pursuing, including clarity of implementation of Phase II and funding to stabilize health care in Phase III.
Yesterday, we began going public with our concerns. You can read either my blog or the story in CBC news. We’ve ramped up individual stories of how physicians are being hurt (see Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman’s blog here). Many physicians have volunteered to speak out on this issue, and I thank you for that. Sadly, your services will be needed. We will be telling many such stories.
Over 4,800 physicians filled out the Practice Impact Survey. The results are unsurprising. 49% of you who have staff indicated you’ve already laid people off (most in the last month). 53% of you who haven’t already laid off staff are anticipating layoffs in the future (most in the next month). 49% of you who have staff anticipate closing your clinic completely, and most of those for as long as three months.
Every doctor in Ontario knows that our health care system simply cannot survive if half of clinics close for up to three months. The impacts to patients would be catastrophic. More than that, there would be significant economic damage done to the Province, as a strong health care system is an essential driver of a healthy economy. We need our economy to recover from the COVID pandemic. These kind of clinic closures will not allow a recovery.
The media campaign we are launching is simple. It’s called #DoTheRightThing. We have all put ourselves at risk and changed our practices due to the COVID pandemic. Our expectation was simple, that the government would fund the work that we do in a timely manner and support the infrastructure necessary to provide care to the residents of Ontario. It’s the right thing to do.
We are all tired. We are all worried. We are all feeling insecure. It is almost inhuman to ask you all to do more work. But ask I must.
I encourage all of you who are willing, to share your personal stories about clinic closures and staff layoffs on Social Media. Make sure you use the #DoTheRightThing when posting. The OMA’s social media team will be looking for this hashtag, and retweeting to amplify. I will be doing more media stories to advocate for all of you going forward. The government needs to understand that they will have a huge crisis on their hands, that will cost the health system and the economy much more, unless they properly fund health care infrastructure now. Please help us help you.
President-Elect Town Hall
Just a brief reminder that on Friday April 17 at 7:00 p.m., there will be a Tele Town Hall with both candidates for President-Elect. There will be a non-binding member poll that will run from April 17 at 8:30 p.m. – April 24 at 2 p.m. I encourage all of you sign up here, and see who will best represent your views.
That’s all for now. I will continue to keep you updated on our advocacy, and as news breaks.
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