Health committee  Good afternoon. I'm a front-line physician practising in Brampton and Milton, Ontario; a medical educator; and the co-founder and president of Concerned Ontario Doctors. I thank you for the opportunity to address the Commons standing committee on health about your study into th

Health committee  The demographic of physicians here in Canada is changing dramatically. We now have more female than male medical students. In the coming decade we will have more female than male practising physicians, but there's also a changing demographic in terms of race. In urban centres su

Health committee  The majority of [Technical difficulty—Editor] physicians actually practise outside of hospital settings. They're in the community and in private practices, often solo practices, so it makes it much more challenging to ensure their safety, particularly if it's a solo practice run

Health committee  Concerned Ontario Doctors is presently undertaking a survey of all of Ontario's practising physicians and medical trainees. We'll have more information, hopefully, by the end of the month. It addresses sexual harassment and violence, along with many other things. A survey of Ca

Health committee  That's actually one of our key recommendations. The Australian government of several years ago passed similar legislation, and it is applicable to front-line physicians, nurses and paramedics. A patient who is engaged in serious assault can be sentenced to up to 14 years. Presen

Health committee  I've had the experience of working in many different provinces. I'm actually originally from Manitoba and I did my medical school training out in Winnipeg, so I'm very familiar with the hospitals there as well. Regarding flow, I think it's very important for administrators to un

Health committee  We've actually seen the opposite happen. Sadly, in 2017 the Ontario government passed legislation giving the regulatory college access to physicians' private medical records.

Health committee  Not only is it now mandatory to disclose mental health issues, but the regulatory college in Ontario also has access to physicians' private personal health records. This has created even further barriers to physicians' access to care. These are serious issues. For some reason,

Health committee  It is.

Health committee  We certainly don't have emergency rooms in Ontario giving flu shots. There are now more and more urgent care facilities that are being positioned close to emergency rooms. Oftentimes the triage nurse has the ability to redirect patients away from the emergency room to the urgent

Health committee  The majority of Ontario's front-line physicians are actually in a private practice and have no benefits. If they do take time off work, not only are they still covering the overhead for their staff but they are also still covering the overhead for their clinic. Once they do come

Health committee  Over the past several years, physicians in private practice have been trying to ensure the safety of their secretarial staff. They're often the very first people who encounter a violent patient at the time of check-in, for example. Physicians are creating more barriers between th

Health committee  What does a panic button trigger? That would be the question. Would it be triggering the local police department? If that's the case, I know that where I practise, the Peel police are extremely overwhelmed. Despite the increased budgeting, they're still struggling to deal with th

Health committee  It's now over one million.

Health committee  The wait times for some specialists have actually ballooned to even beyond three years now, so it's extremely dramatic. Canada has one of the lowest doctors per capita rates among OECD countries. Rather than trying to recruit and rather than trying to train more physicians, we've