Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, David C. Onley, had glowing words for the province's health care system in Monday's speech from the throne.
"In the last six years, 900,000 more Ontarians got access to a family doctor. More international doctors got their licence to practice here," said Onley. "The first nurse practitioner-led clinics in North America are opening their doors. Because Ontarians believe in lifting one another up and caring for one another, we have shorter wait times for cancer surgeries. We have faster care at emergency rooms..."The Ontario government vowed to continue reducing wait times and said it is committed to delivering a "strong, public health care system.""It is a throne speech," said Registered Nurse Vicki McKenna, first vice-president of the Ontario Nurses' Association (ONA). "Words are carefully placed and chosen. It's vague what the government is envisioning."Today, Ontarians face new challenges that require a new plan, said Onley."Ontario will lead by pursuing a path of constant reform to ensure that the health system - and all our vital public services - are there for our children and grandchildren," he said. "Your government will begin this process by keeping drugs affordable to keep Ontarians healthy, and reinvest the savings in health care. It will introduce legislation to make health care providers and executives accountable for improving patient care."For the ONA and its members, the government threw no curve balls. "For us, the throne speech had no huge surprises, however, we would have liked to be surprised," said McKenna.The registered nurse since 1979 said she would have liked to see more support for a struggling system. "We were concerned about information that was leaked over the weekend regarding hospital funding, comparing our costs to other provinces," said McKenna. Ontario spent 13.9 per cent less on hospital funding per capita than other provinces in 2009 even though it spent 10.7 per cent more on drugs and 24.7 per cent on physicians, McKenna pointed out. This has occurred as the government and Local Health Integration Networks remained silent while more than 3.2 million hours of RN care was cut out of the system in the past eight months. "That data came out of the Canadian Health Institute. That's actual hard data. We've been restructured to death. We've been in reform, restructuring - whatever you want to call it - for well over a decade," said McKenna. "We're worried that this ongoing restructuring is causing instability. Nurses are not feeling secure about having a job or practising as a nurse the way they were trained. They've got recruiters knocking on their door."They want to work in Ontario, but they want to feel secure, she added. "We're saying to Ontarians: Pay close attention. Let your MPPs know you want reasonable access to health care," said McKenna.Patients will have greater choice about where they can access the best quality treatment, Onley said. However, McKenna counters that for some, there just isn't much choice. If people are not living in an urban centre, where are they going to go, she asked. "That's a really broad statement to make. There's lots of questions, lots of caution around those words," she said. "We're living in real time. I'm hearing from nurses daily on what their struggles are. I'm worried that the government is not in-the-moment so to speak."The government is thinking theoretically, said McKenna. "We're cautious, we're going to make sure our voices are heard. We want Ontario to be a place where nurses will want to work," she said. The ONA is the union representing 55,000 front-line registered nurses and allied health professionals and more than 12,000 nursing student affiliates providing care in Ontario hospitals, long-term care facilities, public health, the community and industry. "The devil is in the details when it comes to the government's plans to pursue 'a path of constant reform,'" said ONA President Linda Haslam-Stroud, in a statement.