Good evening, Mr. Chair. Thank you so much for today's invitation.
I am Melissa Prokopy. I'm the vice-president of policy and advocacy at the Ontario Hospital Association. The OHA represents Ontario's 135 hospitals. Our membership includes a diverse representation of hospitals of various types and sizes, including mental health and addictions hospitals. I'm joined today by Dr. Kevin Young, who's the vice-president of medical affairs and chief of staff at the Waypoint Centre for Mental Health Care in Penetanguishene, Ontario.
Today, we'll share with you perspectives from the hospital sector about the Ontario health care system's readiness for the proposed expansion of MAID where mental illness is the sole underlying medical condition.
I want to outline three key concerns we have heard from our hospital members with respect to the proposed expansion: existing challenges to access to mental health care services more broadly, the impact of inequities in accessing these services by different parts of the population, and broader system readiness by health care providers to deliver MAID.
I'm going to ask Dr. Young to outline these access and equity points in more detail.