Doug Ford has yet another pre-election healthcare promise. In 2018 it was “ending hallway medicine,” in 2022 it was “unprecedented hospital capacity,” and now it is “connecting every person to primary care.” But his record shows not only that Ford can’t be trusted to deliver on his promise, but that he is actively undermining healthcare through underfunding and through opposing decent work. While Ford hopes to capitalize on the healthcare crisis he helped to create, the election gives an opportunity to put his record to a vote.
Ending hallway medicine?
In 2018 Ford seized on the widespread anger against years of Liberal cuts to healthcare and promised to “end hallway medicine,” but his 2019 budget delivered widespread cuts instead. As the Ontario Healthcare Coalition revealed at the time, these cuts included OHIP+, mental health, overdose prevention, College of Midwives, dementia, autism, hospital funding, long-term care, paramedics, nurse practitioners, telemedicine, and cancer screening.
Even a global pandemic was not enough to reverse Ford’s cuts. In 2020 the Financial Accountability Office (FAO) of Ontario reported that the Ontario healthcare spending was the lowest per person in Canada. As COVID-19 raged in 2021-2022, Ford refused to spend $1.8 billion allocated for healthcare, and hallway medicine worsened.
Unprecedented hospital capacity?
In 2022 Ford seized on the widespread fear of the pandemic and campaigned on expanding healthcare. The Conservatives promised “hiring more nurses, doctors and personal support workers” and declared “Ontario has built unprecedented hospital capacity since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.” But in 2023, the FAO reported the government was spending $21 billion less on healthcare, warning that “Even with government measures to increase the supply of nurses and PSWs, by 2027-28, the FAO projects a shortfall of 33,000 nurses and PSWs.” As intended, the underfunding of public health healthcare has fueled private clinics.
Until recently Ford showed no understanding of the healthcare crisis, and his only solution was scapegoating. Five months ago, Ford closed safe consumption sites – which will increase the death toll of the ongoing overdose epidemic.
Just three months ago Ford blamed patients for emergency department overcrowding, saying “Go to your family physician first and he’ll determine if you’re going to the emergency department.” This ignores the half of family physicians who don’t identify as he/him, ignores all the patients who don’t have family physicians, and blames patients seeking emergency care.
At the same time, the Ontario government announced legislation to bar international students from attending medical school. As a former international medical student explained, “scapegoating foreign nationals is not a solution to Ontario’s healthcare challenges but rather a tactic to distract from the provincial government’s neglect of long-term investment in medical care and education.”
Years of Ford’s policies have only worsened the prior legacy of Liberal cuts. Now, with news stories of hundreds of patients lining up to try to get a family doctor, Ford is seizing on the widespread desperation for healthcare and campaigning on saving primary care.
Connecting every person to primary care?
In triggering a snap election, the Ford government announced a $1.8 billion investment to connect 2 million people across Ontario with primary care by 2029. “With this historic, transformative investment, we can now achieve our goal of connecting every person in the province who wants a primary care provider,” proclaimed Health Minister Sylvia Jones.
But $1.8 billion is the same amount the government withheld from 2021-2022 during a global pandemic, now spread over 4 years. Why wait 7 years to make this investment in primary care, and stall until a month before an election? This announcement is an admission the government has refused to make this investment until it could be used as a cheap election ploy – and includes $400 million already approved but still not delivered.
Ford’s government is the least qualified to fix primary care. The lack of family physicians disproportionately affects people in rural communities who have been hit by hospital closures under Ford, but also low-income workers in cities like Toronto struggling under Ford’s austerity agenda. As Dr. Mekalai Kumanan, president of the Ontario College of Family Physicians explained, “It’s incredibly concerning to see those who are living in the lowest income brackets are more likely to be without a family physician…We know that socioeconomic factors like access to food and safe housing drive health outcomes. And when you add to this a lack of access to a physician, this will absolutely negatively impact the health of those individuals.”
The lack of primary care also disproportionately affects migrants whose temporary healthcare was won at the height of the pandemic but cut by Ford in 2023. As Dr. Nisha Kansal explained, “Our health care system is underfunded and that cost is being downloaded onto low-wage racialized, precariously-housed, precariously-working migrants who also pay for services through their taxes but don’t receive any benefit from that. Our demand [is] healthcare for all”.
Even if we ignore Ford’s history of broken promises and hope his plan works, simply connecting patients with primary care providers on paper will have limited effect without decent work.
Primary care needs decent work
Without paid sick days, even patients with family physicians have difficulties seeing them – as evidenced by lower cancer screening and immunization rates, and higher rates of emergency department use by patients without paid sick days. Many health workers themselves lack paid sick days. Yet Ford has steadfastly fought against paid sick days, except when under immense pressure to provide temporary days during the height of the pandemic.
Without workers compensation, even patients with family physicians will not be able to access the necessary benefits to deal with workplace injuries. Yet Ford transferred $2.5 billion from WSIB to employers.
With high housing costs and poverty wages, even patients with family physicians have difficulties affording prescriptions. Last year the Heart and Stroke Foundation reported that more than 1 in 4 people across Canada cannot afford their prescriptions and either skip doses or avoid filling their prescriptions. Some can only afford their prescriptions by cutting back on groceries, delaying rent or utilities, or incurring debt. Yet Ford has fought against minimum wage hikes, refused to hold employers accountable for $60 million in wage theft, and made deals with housing developers rather than making housing affordable.
Make the election a referendum on Ford’s healthcare crisis
Ford has demonstrated time and again that he not only does not understand or care about the healthcare crisis but actively contributes to it, scapegoats migrants and patients to distract from it, and then uses the worsening crisis as an election ploy to stay in power.
The response to the snap election should not be to ask Ford to stay in power to ‘do his job’ — what he’s doing is the problem. Instead we need to use the ballot box to remove him from power, as part of broader campaigns for public healthcare, decent work, affordable housing, and healthcare for all.
Join the next Justice for Workers event.
Sign the petition for Healthcare for all, and join the Feb 19 panel discussion Winning Healthcare for All: Lessons from U.S. victories for inclusive healthcare policies, regardless of immigration status.
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