NDP leader Horwath visits Sault, will press province for more family doctors (3 photos)

With a provincial election on the horizon, Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath visited Sault Ste. Marie’s Pharmasave west end location on Second Line West Monday to speak about her party’s plan to fix a doctor shortage locally and across northern Ontario.

Horwath was accompanied by Sault NDP candidate Michele McCleave-Kennedy and Sault resident Natalee Martin, who has been without a local family doctor since she moved to this community in 2010.

The struggle of not having a family doctor in the Sault and having to travel out of town for healthcare needs is personal for Sault resident Natalee Martin.

“(Since moving to the Sault in 2010) I have not been able to obtain a primary care physician. In the interim I have since had a child, and other issues have required me to see specialists out of town. My primary care physician is in Burlington, Ontario which is an eight hour drive away so if I need to book an appointment to see my family doctor I need to book at least three days off work (one day for travel to Burlington, one day to see her doctor and one day to travel back to the Sault),” Martin said.

The same need to travel to see a family doctor applies to her four-year-old son.

“More recently I have had some struggles with fertility and have needed to see a fertility specialist in Hamilton, Ontario, which is again an eight hour drive out of town. Those appointments require me to be out of town for one week per month.”

“In previous years I would take advantage of the March Break. COVID made it a little easier where doctors were doing virtual or phone appointments but otherwise I had to plan and book time off work to travel to see my doctors,” Martin told SooToday, adding she hasn’t been able to be added to her husband’s family doctor’s list of patients. 

“It’s frustrating.”

“The specialist in Hamilton says ‘you’re too far away, it’s getting too difficult to take on your care, why don't you talk to your family doctor?’ Well, my family doctor’s out of town saying ‘you’re so far away, can you find someone up there?’ That’s been my struggle. It’s a little disheartening. It feels like nobody wants to help me.”

Meanwhile, Martin says she visits the ER at Sault Area Hospital (SAH) if needed - often a wait of several hours - and still waits to find a family doctor in the Sault.

“Northern communities across our province have, for many, many years, faced a shortage of healthcare professionals and that has caused significant challenges for folks. People are waiting for hours and hours on end in the ER. They’re waiting weeks and weeks to see their family doctor if in fact they’re lucky enough to have a family doctor. They wait in pain and worry if their health changes and they need to see a specialist. It’s difficult to get those appointments and often people are traveling huge distances to get the specialist care that they need,” Horwath said, addressing reporters both on site at the pharmacy and virtually.

“Sault Ste. Marie’s hospital, from my understanding, is 20 physicians short,” Horwath added.

“The shortage of doctors is certainly an issue. As I go around speaking to people at the doors it’s something I’ve heard repeatedly,” McCleave-Kennedy said.

Horwath said the New Democrats have a plan to fix that.

Part of that plan is to get internationally trained healthcare professionals practising in the north and the rest of the province.

“We have a private members bill that we tabled in the Legislature last week. It’s a plan to reduce the barriers to internationally trained professionals to being able to practice in Ontario,” Horwath told SooToday.

“I know a concierge in an apartment building in Toronto who was a family doctor in his home country. We know that’s happening everywhere. We have people who are trained professionals in the health care sector who have significant barriers to practising here and that can be fixed.”

It is estimated between 5,000 to 15,000 internationally trained doctors in Ontario are unable to practise in the province, Horwath said.

Horwath and the NDP will put a motion forward in the Legislature demanding Premier Doug Ford’s Progressive Conservative government spend more to address the doctor, nurse and specialist shortage in northern Ontario. 

The motion - to be put forward Wednesday, March 23 - is a plan to attract, train and retain nurses, physicians and specialists in northern Ontario, expand the number of seats and training opportunities at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine (NOSM) and ‘fix’ the Northern Health Travel Grant for families who have to travel to get the care they need.

The NDP plan calls for 300 doctors for the north.