Thank you very much, Chairperson.
First of all, thank you to our presenters for coming today. We've only just started this study, so this panel is actually the first non-governmental officials that we've heard. We're kind of just getting into it and—well, I'll speak for myself—wrapping my head around it.
First of all, it's just wonderful to see such an esteemed panel of women from major organizations in the country. Thank you so much for your presentations.
I'm actually going play a little bit of a devil's advocate today. I find that some of what you say, maybe a lot of what you say, is difficult to translate into everyday reality from a patient's point of view. So that's what I really want of kind of put out there.
We have this huge issue of scope of practice, team-based practice, and patient-centred care, and I don't really get why it's not happening at a much faster pace. You represent four major bodies that are right in the centre of this discussion. You've talked about the need to have the federal role, which I absolutely support, as a catalyst, collaborator, convenor, and all of that. But describe for us, what would an ideal team-based approach look like, say in an urban community? What would it look like in a remote community? Could you describe it to us? Describe it to us in terms of a family practice, or how it is connected, then, back to an acute-care facility.
I just feel like we're not getting the picture of what it actually should look like. You've given some examples, but if we had an ideal patient-centred care, team-based approach, say here in Ottawa, what actually would it look like if I walked into that as a patient? I often feel that people get bounced around. You go to your family doctor or you go to a specialist, and they can only deal with this bit. You go to someone else, and they can deal with that bit. Then, your GP feels like they don't have the expertise, so who's taking care of you overall? I do feel like there is a gap.
I'm being a bit negative, and I'm really kind of putting it to you. I just feel like it should be better than it is, because everybody's talking about the same thing, but it's not happening, or it's happening in a very patchy way. So if you can respond to that and give us some concrete examples, it would be really helpful.