The Ford government does not have the immediate intention of closing the clinics of for -profit practitioners in Ontario despite the clear reception of the federal government on the progressive elimination of the installations with a reference act.
The province was under pressure from health care defenders and political opponents to fight against the rise of private clinics of practitioners who charge patients for everything, initial admission visits, urgent appointments, Monitoring meetings and prescription recharge requests.
While Canada’s health system prevents implementation fees, private nurses’ clinics began to appear in 2024 after receiving provincial funding as part of the Ford government -led clinical program.
Last spring, more than a dozen such clinics broke out in the province.
The Canada Health Act has also allowed nurses to operate in a gray area, because the law governing the country’s health system only included the language around doctors and hospital workers, but has not specifically prohibited private opening clinics.
Ontario Minister of Health Sylvia Jones called this “escape” which prevented the province from ranging and has repeatedly asked the federal government’s clarification of Canada law.
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At the beginning of January, the Federal Minister of Health, Mark Holland, updated the Canada Health Act to specifically allow provinces to treat nurses and pharmacists like doctors, which allows them to create codes of Billing for additional health care providers and to create a path for independent practices led by practitioners to operate to operate under the public system.
At the time, Holland also told the provinces that his expectations were to promulgate changes, which came into force in 2026. Provincial governments which would not implement invoicing codes would see the funding of health care retained, declared Holland.
In Ontario, while the Ford government is preparing for an early election, Jones did not seem to be in a hurry to act now that the flaw she asked Ottawa to repair was addressed.
“What we do and what I want to see are the opportunities for nurses who are already training, who are already in the province, to be able to work in multidisciplinary teams,” said Jones at a conference press Monday.
Asked several times if she did not have the immediate intention of closing the clinics of for -profit practitioners operating across Ontario, Jones pivoted to speak of a distinct announcement.
“I would say respectfully that $ 1.8 billion expanding primary care practitioners in the province of Ontario are enormous action,” she said.
The Association of Ontario Authorized Nurses (RNAO) calls on the province to accelerate a new financing model for practitioners in which they are “paid fairly and competitively”.
“We do not support for -profit clinics, but by closing them without creating a parallel flow of funding for nurses, for NPs who cannot find a job and that the expectation of serving the public will do more harm than Good, “said Rnao CEO Doris Grinspun.
Although the province had until 2026 to tighten, Grinspun said that the chronology “does not prevent them from moving faster”.
The liberal critic of health Adil Shamji thinks that there is more behind the province.
“Sylvia Jones has been entirely evasive on the question of what she is going to do with existing private nurses clinics and this is entirely in line with her approach to privatization in her health care system,” Shamji told Global News.
“She was happy to close her eyes to refer the problem to other people and pretend as if there was nothing that she could do,” added Shamji.
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