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There will be “safeguards” to prevent an exodus of doctors and nurses from hospitals when Premier Doug Ford unveils a plan for them to do more surgeries at independent clinics in “their spare time,” a senior government official says.
There will be “safeguards” to prevent an exodus of doctors and nurses from hospitals when Premier Doug Ford unveils a plan for them to do more surgeries at independent clinics in “their spare time,” a senior government official says.
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The effort aimed at clearing a backlog of operations postponed during the pandemic will be announced next week amid concerns from critics it will weaken hospital staffing with physicians, nurses and other medical personnel strained by three gruelling years of COVID-19.
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But Ford is hopeful his controversial expansion of more types of privately delivered surgeries in independent health facilities (IHFs) will incentivize doctors to do additional procedures for which they cannot get operating room time in hospitals.
‘First step’
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“As a first step to immediately shorten wait times, the government is expanding surgeries and procedures at existing community clinics using their existing personnel, ensuring no impact on the broader system,” the senior government source, speaking confidentially in order to discuss internal deliberations, said Friday.
“As the government expands the role of community-based clinics to further shorten wait times for Ontarians, specific measures will be in place to protect staffing and stability in hospitals.”
The independent health facilities will be required to submit “staffing plans that tell us how they’re not stealing a hospital’s (health human resources),” the official added.
“Other provinces are doing this and so is Ontario.”
Wait times to increase
The regulatory body for doctors in the province warned wait times for urgent hospital care will increase under the plan.
College of Physicians and Surgeons registrar Dr. Nancy Whitmore also raised concerns that new facilities will not be connected to hospitals and will draw doctors, nurses and other medical professionals away from them.
‘Need to be connected’
“Many months ago, we were consulted and shared our opinion that stand-alone surgical centres need to be connected to the hospital system to ensure continuity of care and patient safety,” Whitmore said in a statement.
“We also shared that this wasn’t the solution to the health-care crisis and would further tax our health human resources shortages and further increase wait times for more urgent hospital-based care,” she added.
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“We have not recently been engaged in the conversation and were not informed that this was being announced or implemented.”
The senior government official told the Star the college had not yet been informed of the staffing “safeguards” in the plan.
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“We’re going to put measures in place to make sure a doctor or nurse doesn’t just leave the hospital for the other (private) clinic,” the insider said.
“Giving them more opportunity at an IHF will offer another way they can be doing more surgeries.”
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