Northern Ontarians raise healthcare concerns during town hall

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Access to family doctors, long emergency wait times and healthcare worker shortages were among the key concerns raised during a telephone town hall led by Timiskaming-Cochrane MPP John Vanthof and Ontario Medical Association president Dr. Zainab Abdurrahman, on Oct. 7.

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The hour-long event brought together residents from across northern Ontario to share personal stories and ask questions about the state of local health care. The discussion touched on a wide range of issues, from physician shortages and mental health to transportation barriers and funding for rural hospitals.

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“The OMA represents over 43,000 Ontario doctors, we advocate for a better healthcare system for everyone across Ontario and that includes all the different communities within Northern Ontario,” Dr. Abdurrahman said. “Since becoming OMA President, I’ve been travelling across the province speaking with doctors and patients and hearing the stories about the significant healthcare challenges communities are facing.”

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Dr. Abdurrahman emphasized that access to family medicine affects more than just physical health. “Access to a family doctor is more than just a health issue, it’s about economic development, population growth and community resilience,” she said.

However, she acknowledged that a gap remains.

“More than 2.5 million Ontarians still don’t have access to a family doctor and that number is projected to be 4.4 million in the next two years,” Dr. Abdurrahman said.

A live poll conducted during the town hall found 62 percent of respondents said they have a family doctor, while 38 percent said they don’t.

Dr. Abdurrahman said the OMA is working with the government, Dr. Jane Philpott and the Primary Care Action Team to create a new funding model aimed at connecting more Ontarians to family physicians by 2029.

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Vanthof said healthcare access remains one of the top issues he hears about from constituents.

“This is an opportunity for the residents of Temiskaming-Cochrane to tell it like it is,” he said.

Emergency department pressures

Several callers asked about lengthy wait times in emergency departments. Vanthof said northern communities have managed better than some might expect, given the province-wide challenges.

“There have been some emergency departments with long waits, we are working with the CEOs of the hospitals to fully understand this,” he said. “I think part of the issue is lack of primary care and people are ending up in the emergency department when they should’ve been able to see their family doctor.”

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Dr. Abdurrahman echoed those concerns, linking ER strain to the shortage of primary care providers.

“When we talk about emergency departments, it’s actually not just what’s happening in the emergency departments, it’s what happens before,” she said. “Unfortunately, we’re having a lot of people who don’t have this access, who are ending up using the emergency room for primary care needs.”

She noted keeping emergency rooms open requires coordinated staffing.

“We need doctors in the emergency room, we need nurses, there’s a lot of different people who also work in the emergency room — ensuring that all of those services are also there to keep our emergency departments open,” she said.

Recruiting and retaining doctors in the North

A caller from Kirkland Lake asked what could be done to attract and retain doctors in northern Ontario. Dr. Abdurrahman said one proposed solution is a Northern Rural Coordination Centre focused on regional recruitment.

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“One of the ways to do this, which we’ve advocated for, is to have this Northern Rural Coordination Centre which focuses on having solutions to bring doctors to the region, not just recruit them but also retain them,” she said

She added the centre would help develop solutions that “make sense for Northern Ontario, for working rural communities.”

Vanthof pointed to the Northern Ontario School of Medicine as an example of success.

“We have had some success stories and one of them I think one of them is the Northern Ontario School of Medicine where people who come from the north are trained in the north and stay in the north because regardless of where you’re from, everyone has a desire to return home,” he said.

However, he cautioned that competition between the towns for physicians is counterproductive.

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“Right now, we do have towns directly competing against each other and that’s not productive,” Vanthof said. “It needs to be a much more central system as opposed to every town competing against their neighbour, because it’s pretty rough out there right now.”

Fixing primary care

When asked what the OMA is doing to “help fix primary care,” Dr. Abdurrahman said there is no single solution, but rather a combination of efforts aimed at strengthening the entire system.

“This is a multi-pronged approach, we all know if there was one simple solution it would be easily done and implemented, but it actually requires a lot of different aspects.”

She said part of that work involves strengthening team-based models of care.

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“We’re also working on the expansion of what we’re calling the ‘Primary Care Core Team,’ and that means having your family doctor, but having all the other people who need to work around them to kind of give you the care that you need,” Dr. Abdurrahman said.

She explained this would include nurse practitioners, doctors, physiotherapists and other allied health professionals who can help patients access a full range of care. She added making primary care more collaborative and better resourced would also help attract new medical graduates to the field.

“It seems like one small thing, but actually working towards addressing family medicine and access to primary care is actually us looking at the entire healthcare system and bringing us up so that we can provide this kind of sustainable model moving forward,” Dr. Abdurrahman said said.

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Francophone and mental health services

Questions about francophone accessibility and mental health care also came up during the discussion, as residents highlighted the need for more bilingual services and local supports.

Vanthof said about 40 per cent of the region’s residents are francophone.

“Services should be available in French,” he said, but added shortages of bilingual workers make this difficult. “Right now, we’re short of all healthcare workers, so it’s tough to turn people away if they’re not francophone.”

Dr. Abdurrahman agreed, calling it a “huge issue across the country.” She said the shortage of bilingual healthcare professionals highlights the need to encourage more francophone students to enter medical and nursing fields.

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Mental health was another recurring concern. Residents said they often rely on neighbouring districts for psychiatric or addiction care.

“This is an ongoing issue that we’ve seen just really continue to increase over time,” said Dr. Abdurrahman. She added boosting local funding and addressing staffing shortages in psychiatry and mental health nursing are essential steps.

Vanthof said the problem has grown beyond urban centres. “Small town rural Ontario, we’re facing as big of issues as the big cities,” he said. “I don’t think our system has come to grips with that yet.”

Travel and hospital funding

A caller from Englehart raised concerns about dangerous winter travel for medical appointments. He said travel grants should consider weather and allow for overnight stays. “It’s bad enough with the trucks on the road, let alone facing ice, and you cannot see in the middle of the night,” he said.

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Vanthof agreed it is a valid point.

“If you’re not feeling well, you need to go for a test, and you or your driver have to drive in the middle of the night on our icy roads — that really isn’t acceptable,” he said, adding he would look into the issue.

Funding for rural hospitals was another hot topic. Dr. Abdurrahman said hospitals are trying to operate under outdated funding formulas.

“This is something that I don’t think there’s an easy fix per se but I do think that there is a lot of discussion that needs to be had at multiple levels of government for this, for the hospitals, to be able to continue providing the care and hopefully provide more care,” she said.

“One of the things is really looking at the funding formula, asking for them to really be reevaluated to ensure that hospitals can continue to provide care at the level that is needed.”

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Vanthof said the province must “fund hospitals realistically,” adding that legislation like Bill 124 worsened staff shortages by pushing workers to private agencies.

“I don’t blame them — because agencies weren’t capped,” he said. “That was bad legislation, it wasn’t well thought through. And the government needs to make a bigger effort to actually think through the ramifications, when they do something, what actually is going to happen because they should’ve seen that coming and obviously, they didn’t.”

Closing remarks

Vanthof thanked residents for taking part and said the discussion showed the depth of concerns across the riding.

“It was my goal tonight that we specifically heard the issues from Gowganda to Englehart to Cochrane, and we heard them,” he said, encouraging residents to continue contacting his office with their experiences and suggestions.

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Dr. Abdurrahman said the OMA would take the feedback from the event forward in its advocacy work.

“These questions that you brought up tonight have been great for us to hear,” she said. “Your stories are powerful, and they continue to invoke us to do more.”

She added residents’ perspectives are vital in shaping change. “It’s key that all these issues are elevated so that they are heard when we bring forward our advocacy measures because we’re reflecting what you said to us,” she said.

Both speakers closed on a note of shared purpose — that improving healthcare in Northern Ontario will require collaboration between residents, doctors, and all levels of government.

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