Health committee  It's also ingrained in institutions, especially when it's coming from someone in a position of authority or power within the institution. Rather than actually addressing the problem, often the institution will do everything to protect the institution, and physicians, nurses and

Health committee  That's extremely challenging, especially because the Internet affords individuals with anonymity. When someone can remain anonymous, there's no accountability for their actions. There is also something known as RateMDs, which has become a very toxic environment. It's actually ow

Health committee  Medical students start experiencing sexism and racism from patients—for example, sexual harassment—when they are in their early clerkship years, even before they have gone into their formal residency training. From the time I trained to even now, there has been no formal traini

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

Health committee  As I said, the government really needs to start to see physicians as humans. If there's one message I can bring to this committee, it's that doctors are humans. Start treating doctors as humans, and that means taking away a lot of these toxic policies that exist. There is no reas

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  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  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  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  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