Thursday, January 20, 2000

The National Post - Business Letter:

Ontario's health system at risk

I am writing to thank you for the article, Ontario's Commissars of Health (Jan. 17). I am a 33-year-old female family physician. I work six days a week in my office -- Sunday through Friday every week of the year, with the exception of approximately six Sundays off a year. Our office is open seven days a week to serve our patients. I love my job and I care a great deal about my patients.

I also hold a licence to practice medicine in the State of Arizona. I do not want to leave Ontario. I feel hopeless and powerless with respect to the future of primary care in this country. I feel that [Primary Health Care Group Practice] is going to be rammed down our throats by the government because they have been able to project in the media the notion that this will solve the current health-care crisis.

The crisis that exists in the emergency rooms is certainly exacerbated by inappropriate visits by patients. However, the extreme crisis exists because beds on wards and entire hospitals were closed by Dr. Duncan Sinclair and the Ontario Health Services Restructuring Committee without planning or forethought. Ambulances are being redirected not because the ER waiting rooms are full of people with mild flu viruses and other trivial ailments, but because the beds in the emergency rooms are being occupied for days at a time by seriously ill patients waiting for transfer to the floors.

I agree that there are problems in the current system, but revamping the entire primary care system without any real data or idea how it will work is ludicrous. I really do not know where to turn. The OMA continues to push changes without consulting grass-roots family physicians, and does not represent my interests. There are several groups, including the Ontario Physicians' Alliance and The Coalition Of Family Physicians, that fight hard to represent what I feel is right and fair, but it is an uphill battle. I feel vilified in the press. I feel the government is going to do whatever it wants unless the public becomes more aware of the seriousness of this proposal, which I believe is unlikely to occur. So I continue to pay my yearly licence dues for the right to practise medicine in Arizona, and more often than not these days I feel like I'll be using that licence one day.

Suzanne Strasberg, MD, CCFP, Toronto.