Inconvenient statistics for George Smitherman - With update

Sun columnist James Wallace warns us of more doctor shortages ahead for Ontario.

Here are the grim numbers:

The Ontario government over the past five years has increased health care spending by a staggering $10 billion.

Doctors got a $1-billion pay hike during their last round of negotiations with the province in part to make physician compensation competitive with other jurisdictions, help attract new doctors and retain existing ones.

Hospitals have been offered barrels of cash to reduce waits by pushing more patients through surgeries and procedures.

The government has hired thousands of new nurses, increased medical school spaces, doubled training to allow more foreign doctors to practice here and created new family health teams in an attempt to expand patient access to doctors.

But five years of spending has removed just 200,000 "orphan" patients from the list of Ontarians without a doctor.

More than a million Ontarians, including 130,000 children, still can't find a family doctor.

On top of that, as Wallace points out, many doctors will be retiring soon:

...doctors are getting older and some 2,500 family practitioners and specialists -- about 10% of the total -- are 55 or older...

Things are clearly going to get worse before they get better.

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Update: This one's for Sheena (see comments) - Do something about shortage of family MDs, Liberals urged - Record:

Critics are accusing the governing Liberals of complacency in light of figures which show Ontario is continuing to lose precious family doctors to other provinces.

While Premier Dalton McGuinty says the government has made a lot of progress in recruiting and retaining Ontario doctors, the Ontario Medical Association and opposition parties say the situation is dire.

Sheena is a real person, not a mere statistic. She needs a doctor, as do many other people living in Waterloo Region.

As John Tory notes in the article, "They should get a sense of urgency about this,'' Tory said. "The very fact that they have the audacity to say that they're making progress and it's just a matter of waiting like it's something cooking on the stove, is absolutely an abdication of responsibility.''

See, Ontario? That's what you get for letting McGuinty and company have a second majority - complacency.

Four more years of it.

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Monday Update: Lorrie Goldstein - Government malpractice to blame.

I had forgotten this:

In one example of central planning run amok, the then NDP government in Ontario announced it would pay the University of Toronto up to $10 million annually not to produce as many doctors.

Thanks, Bob.


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