“Our government is not complacent,” a spokesman for the health minister said.
Editor's note: This article originally appeared on The Trillium, a Village Media website dedicated to state politics at Queen's Park.
We asked you to share your health care experiences, and you did.
Ontarians told us it takes too long to get care at every stage — whether it's finding a family doctor, seeing a family doctor, going to the emergency room, making a specialist appointment, getting mental health care, getting a test, having surgery or getting a long-term care bed.
To gauge Ontarians' experiences with the health care system, Village Media partnered with technology company CrowdSmart AI and asked readers to participate. More than 1,500 readers shared more than 2,000 opinions about the current state of the health care system and their own experiences, providing feedback on which ideas submitted by other participants resonated with them most.
CrowdSmart AI’s system highlighted what best reflected experiences across Ontario and found common themes.
The loudest and clearest thing? The latency. So loud, in fact, that it almost drowned out all other sounds.
The simple phrase “long wait times” was the most common opinion from readers. The third most common was “long wait times. Poor quality of medical care.”
Others have spoken at length on the same subject.
Some people said they had to wait long periods of time for treatment at emergency rooms.
“I dread going to the ER because of the wait time,” another wrote.
One reader wrote that she spent $8,000 on personal care for her husband and was praying that their finances would hold up long enough so that he wouldn't be forced to enter a long-term care facility against his will.
Some people said they had to wait years for surgery.
“My cancer surgery should have taken place within 28 days of my diagnosis. It took 84 days and there were delays in changing doctors and hospitals,” one reader wrote.
Many wrote that they don't have a family doctor or have to rush to be seen after long waits (if they have one).
“Even if you're lucky enough to find a family doctor, it's nearly impossible to get an appointment, let alone contact them within two weeks,” one reader wrote.
“My wife and I don't have a family doctor and have been waiting 10 years. I'm 76,” wrote another.
Readers complained about doctors insisting on addressing only one problem per visit for billing purposes, or forcing patients to undergo unnecessary virtual visits to boost profits.
But not everyone is dissatisfied with their doctor's care: Of the few positive comments, the one most strongly endorsed by readers was “having a good family doctor that I can trust,” which was the second most common opinion overall.
At the same time, “not having a regular doctor” was also supported almost equally strongly.
Many complained about the medical care they received, but some blamed flaws in the system rather than the medical professionals they encountered.
“It's clear that health workers continue to provide care and do their best but are struggling with increased workloads coupled with reduced support from the government – resulting in longer waiting times and sometimes poorer outcomes,” one reader wrote.
Other readers also pointed to problems such as long waiting times, overcrowded facilities and doctors rushing to get help, which led to delayed diagnoses and worsening health outcomes.
Lack of accessible mental health care was a common concern.
“My daughter suffers from many mental health issues and there is no help,” one reader wrote.
“There's no mental health support, just constant shuffling from one unstructured organisation to another,” wrote another.
Some readers complained about age discrimination.
“Once I turned 65 the attitude changed: 'I'm old now, who cares?'” one person wrote.
Privatization was another common theme, with some readers strongly opposed to privatization and a few talking about private alternatives they had used.
“Private, for-profit clinics are truly scary. They separate and divide medical workers. I don't want to pay a penny to these capitalist monsters,” said one reader.
“If you are not willing to pay for private clinics, you will have to wait longer to get medical services,” wrote another. “If you are not willing to pay, it is nearly impossible to find a doctor. The government seems to want to invest (more) in private clinics and services than in existing public services. Urgent waiting times are getting worse instead of improving as promised. Long term care is only available to the wealthy. We definitely live in a two-tiered health system, thanks to the federal and state governments.”
Trillium passed on this feedback to the Health Minister's office, and a spokesperson for Sylvia Jones released a statement blaming the health system's problems on the previous Liberal government.
“Our administration is not satisfied with the status quo,” Hannah Jensen said in an emailed statement.
“That's why, under Premier Doug Ford's leadership, my government has made record investments in our publicly funded health-care system, building a more connected, convenient system that gets people the care they need, when they need it,” she said. “Since 2018, my government has increased the health-care budget by more than 31 per cent, investing more than $85 billion in the system this year alone. We've added more than 80,000 nurses and 12,500 doctors to the health-care workforce, added more than 3,500 beds in hospitals across the province, and undertaken the development of more than 50 hospitals that will add an additional 3,000 beds, all while making historic investments to connect more than 600,000 people to primary care and add thousands of new medical, nurse and nursing education seats across the province.”
“To continue to reduce wait times for surgeries and diagnostic procedures, we have invested more than $1 billion to support hospitals' innovative ideas to make access to care faster and easier,” Jensen continued.
“But we're not stopping there. We're adding 100,000 new publicly funded scans to make it faster and easier for patients across the state to get the care they need, when they need it,” he said, referring to the expansion of government-funded MRI and CT scans at private facilities.
