Romano ‘cautiously optimistic’ about plan for de-rostered Group Health patients

Sault MPP Ross Romano says he and a recently formed task force are working to address the healthcare needs of more than 10,000 Group Health Centre patients who face being de-rostered and left without access to a family doctor effective May 31, 2024.

The task force had its first meeting March 1.

“The main fundamental priority in the short term is to have something in place before May 31st of this year to prevent those 10,176 patients from losing access to primary care. That is the number one pressing concern,” Romano told SooToday in an interview Friday.

“I am cautiously optimistic that we will have a solution in place before May 31st,” Romano said.

The Sault MPP said he has been meeting with approximately 30 healthcare administrators and primary care providers across the community to ensure he is being advised by experts.

Romano said the task force includes administrators and medical staff from many groups including GHC, Superior Family Health Team, Sault Community Health Centre, Sault Area Hospital, Algoma Nurse Practitioner-Led Clinic, various pharmacies, Algoma Ontario Health Team, paramedics and a number of specialists.

The team includes newer doctors, others nearing retirement and already-retired doctors.

Romano said the task force’s members are focused and will continue to report to each other on a once-a-month basis and more often as needed.

As SooToday reported yesterday, Ontario’s Ministry of Health had still not approved nearly $11 million in funding requests GHC has made.

GHC is seeking $7.1 million in one-time funding and $3.6 million in ongoing funding for a total of $10.7 million.

GHC wants $1.6 million of that amount to go toward a program that would enable five nurses to gain certification as nurse practitioners. 

Romano said he was reminded of GHC’s need for funding in a Jan. 12 letter, one day after he was informed of the imminent de-rostering of 10,000 GHC patients.

“I have been asking the task force to provide me with every funding request that these different providers have made of the Ministry of Health and I have also been asking quite a few of them to make proposals to go to the Ministry of Health to try to address most principally the May 31st deadline date,” Romano said Friday.

SooToday has also reported that Mike Da Prat, United Steelworkers Local 2251 president and approximately 20 other labour union representatives have written a letter requesting a meeting with Romano and Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones regarding the Sault’s need for family doctors.

“I just got their letter yesterday after it was made public and I have a protocol in my office. Anybody who wants to have a meeting with me, I always will meet with that person. We have a process that we follow in the office to get a sense of how to schedule that meeting,” Romano said. 

The MPP said such a meeting will need to be coordinated for an in-person or video conference format.

“I’m certainly very happy to meet with the group and provide them with the information that I believe all of the public deserves to know.”

Labour leaders and others have called on the provincial government to speed up the licensing of foreign-trained doctors to ease the Sault’s family doctor shortage.

SooToday reported that in their letter, labour leaders claim the ministry has denied a grant request from a local doctor that would allow him to train up to 51 internationally trained doctors and health care professionals to practice in Ontario. 

“That was in the letter from the union individuals. I have never heard of anything like that before so I will certainly be asking them where they obtained that information when I speak to them,” Romano said.

The MPP said there are mechanisms already in place to speed up licensing of foreign-trained doctors to practice medicine in Ontario.    

“We have the Ontario Practice Readiness Assessment Program which only requires a 90-day period if you satisfy all the requirements.”

“The process already exists. We’ve seen positive results in our community surrounding that. I learned this from our recruiting doctors that work through the Group Health Centre and NOSM University and there is a very fulsome plan in place that begins at the national level and then works down to a provincial and regional level for the purposes of recruiting residency positions,” Romano said.

He said there is a shortage of doctors to train foreign doctors as they seek certification to practice in Ontario.

“One of the greatest challenges that I’ve learned about thus far has nothing to do with the process itself but more to do with needing more preceptors, the people that train residents that come into the program. After a doctor completes medical school they go into residency and they need a certain number of preceptors to teach those residents and there is a challenge regionally and provincially with having preceptors in place to do training of these doctors.”

“That is something that as a group the task force will be looking into further and I’d love to be able to work with partners like NOSM University to get more trainers wherever possible,” Romano said.

“The long term vision of the task force is to ensure that we are providing every person who wants access to primary care services in our community with longitudinal comprehensive primary care services, covering both preventative, proactive measures of care as well as urgent measures of care, for instance getting your prescriptions refilled, booking your yearly physical and all other wraparound supports that you would expect when you are attached to a specific doctor and we want to make sure that those services are provided by a care team that is properly supported to deliver those services.”

It was announced Jan. 25 that 10,000 GHC patients would lose access to their primary care provider by May 31, 2024 and that an additional 6,000 patients would also be de-rostered if trends continue.

That followed news in July 2023 that 3,000 GHC patients had already been de-rostered.

Long-serving GHC family doctors have retired with no replacements on the horizon.

Nationwide, fewer medical students are choosing family medicine and younger family doctors are leaving primary care due to an overwhelming amount of paperwork involved in the profession.

Romano said there will be announcements from the task force regarding the doctor shortage at GHC in the near future.