The next phase of Ontario’s strategy to increase the availability of privately run clinics providing publicly funded healthcare will begin early next year, Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced, with four centers set to offer hip and knee replacements.
Ontario is allocating $125 million over two years to facilitate up to 20,000 orthopedic surgeries at community clinics.
The province has already broadened the private provision of public health services for cataract operations and MRI and CT scans, resulting in 40,000 eye surgeries within the last year and tens of thousands of MRI and CT operating hours.
This expansion aims to ensure that 90 percent of patients receive these procedures within clinically recommended time frames, increasing from the current level of 80 percent, Jones stated.
Some critics argue that this funding should go towards public hospitals instead, but Jones believes it doesn’t have to be an either-or scenario.
“What I see is an existing operation that has literally hundreds of surgical and diagnostic centres that are operating independently in our communities, where individuals, where patients have that convenience of not having to travel literally hours to get assessments, to get, in some cases, vital treatments and now, surgical (procedures),” she said at a press conference.
“When we do that, we actually preserve the capacity that we have in our acute care hospitals, and we’ll continue to make sure that our entire system is not only protected for individuals and patients who need those services but also that we are building capacity.”
Ontario has more than 900 privately operated clinics which the government refers to as community surgical and diagnostic centres – primarily focused on diagnostic imaging.
The four clinics receiving funding for hip and knee surgeries include OV Surgical Centre in Toronto, Academic Orthopedic Surgical Associates in Ottawa, Windsor Orthopedic Surgical Centre, and Schroeder Ambulatory Centre located in Richmond Hill.
The non-profit Schroeder Ambulatory Centre was where Premier Doug Ford announced earlier expansions back in June. In this previous round of funding, the province committed $155 million over two years for establishing 57 new centres specializing in MRI and CT scans along with gastrointestinal endoscopy services.
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