Strategy forming for improved access to doctors

Barinder Gill

Strategy for improved access to doctors for residents of Prince Edward and Hastings counties was explained to council Tuesday night by Barinder Gill, representing the Hastings Prince Edward Ontario Health Team (HPE OHT). Gill is also Executive Director of the Prince Edward Family Health Team.

About 30 per cent of all lower acuity emergency department visits (conditions that are less severe and not immediately dangerous) were for patients without access to a primary care provider. This is more than double the provincial value of 14 per cent.

In the meantime, the HPE OHT has been planning sessions, input and draft models created. In the County, some community clinics have been established.

As of September 2023, an estimated 26,400 people in the two counties did not have a doctor (4,400 people in Prince Edward County, 8,700 in Belleville and Tyendinaga, 7,500 in Quinte West and 5,800 in rural Hastings).

A draft model for an expanded allied health core team has been created for each of the above “neighbourhoods” in the counties to bring primary health care to those who do not have doctors (initially); staffed by a medical doctor/nurse practitioner and supported by allies.

In its expanded and optimized form of allied health teams, Gill explained all team-based programs and services would be available to everybody. Patients would be rostered to a team rather than any one provider.

The value to the community, he explained, is in the care, improved transitions and reduced burdens on hospitals and lower system costs. The value to primary care providers, his report states, includes spending more time practicing family medicine (versus running a business, navigating); benefit from schedule flexibility with shift-style work; shared skills and knowledge from team members; better work-life balance; benefit from reduction in administration burden and more connection to a system providing care.

Next steps include waiting for a call from Ontario Health for a proposal submission and he notes there is no timeline as yet. The model will also need to be finalized this fall.

The challenge, he said, will be how to navigate if there is no funding opportunity as the need for improving access will persist.

He stated he is hopeful funding will become available due to the appointment this week of Jane Philpott to lead a new primary care team seeking to improve health care in Ontario. The stated goal is to connect every person to a primary care provider within the next five years.

The Ontario Medical Association states there are more than 2.5 million Ontario residents who don’t have a family doctor.

Philpott is Queen’s University’s medical school director and a former federal health minister. Her appointment takes effect Dec. 1.