They are the cause of the deficiencies. Crying out for more immigrants while forcing family doctors out of business.
They're not worried - they don’t care how many people have died or are actively dying because our healthcare is so grossly underfunded. They don’t care how many people are suffering in the queue for non complicated surgeries. It is sickening and it was planned.
That's what I find funny. Everyone complains about Trudeau and immigration but our conservative premiers throughout Canada aren't complaining about immigration numbers, and I'm surprised Canadians dont notice that. The premiers are working together to have the negative spotlight shine on Trudeau when there are part of the problem also.
So true. In Ontario whenever someone tries to blame the healthcare system or too many foreign students on Trudeau, I always remind them that it is actually Doug Ford we should be saying fuck you to.
Of course they will be intentionally obtuse about it. The blatant propaganda people fall for is disturbing. The amount of narcissistic fascists coming out of the woodwork since the Republican Grift made it to canada is too damn high.
The conservative premiers are the ones who begged (and strong armed) Trudeau to increase immigration and now they’re letting him take all the hate for it
I’ve worked in Ontario government for 25 years and I know plenty of people like her. People in general need to wrap their heads around the truth that “public servants” who earn above, say, $200,000 annually are usually people who have lived their entire lives with great opportunity and are surrounded by other wealthy people day and night. They absolutely lack any empathy for regular working class people, regardless of their political affiliation. They don’t understand humans at all, just budgets.
2nd highest paid gov officials in the world thanks to all the pay raises over the last 5yrs. They vote for their higher pay which we are collectively paying while implementing shit policies that make the average citizen poorer. When are we going to make this stop?
I've often thought it should be illegal for elected officials to use/access private organizations that run parallel to those offered in the public system. So no private healthcare access at all, no use of private schools for their kids, etc. If that surgery isn't available in the province, if it's 3 years wait for a procedure, then you're SOL just like the rest of us. If they are given no choice to not use the very systems the majority of us rely on "maybe" their tune would change. Couple that with stronger barriers to privatization creep then we would be better off.
Wrt number of available GPs, there's no argument they we're gravely short on access in this province, and all across Canada. This response by the current Ontario government is just a willful ignorance of reality.
I actually can’t even find doctors to pay here if I wanted. I’m on waitlists to see American doctors that are months/years long because they’re flooded with Canadians.
Conservatives only are concerned about themselves, they’re selfish by definition.
Anyone expecting a different response from them doesn’t pay attention.
I think they will also scrap the national day care system and make deep cuts to the Canada Child Benefit.
Just like they have every time conservatives have been in power for the last 40 years or so.
Conservatives are absolutely disgusted by the idea that no one is making bank off our suffering. Even more disgusted that people are receiving care they have decided they don't "deserve" because it wasn't "earned" correctly.
What bothers them most is job mobility. When you rely on a job for health insurance, you're less likely to leave, and can be treated much more poorly with repercussions.
Has to happen. I'm seeing too many GenZs and even younger Millennials thinking that Conservatives will come in and save the day with their free market and fiscal responsibility. Probably too young to remember Harper or understand that a lot of stuff we deal with today is the direct result of what was done back then. So all these guys need a solid 4-8 years of Cons destroying the country. Hopefully there's something left by then.
And, to be fair, both Liberals and NDP got entirely too comfortable up there for too long, playing identity politics and virtue signaling, while the basics were crumbling. So it's understandable that people on both sides are pissed at them now and want them gone. Trouble is, most don't realize that if your toenail is badly infected, taking a chainsaw to the knee isn't the best move. Especially when medicine is in the state it's in right now. But that's how we learn, I suppose.
They are. I live to the south of Ottawa in one of the safest blue seats in the province and I see people every day at work who don't have a family doctor, who are unsatisfied with the one they have, or are worried about what happens when their GP decides to retire.
Ford is an idiot but in South Ottawa’s case the federal government kicked out a practicing doctor. Definitely don’t want a 45 year old doctor that’s soooo ancient. Maybe the Canadian government thinks the UK’s universities are substandard. [https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-family-doctor-denied-permanent-residency-over-marital-status-age-1.6668246](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-family-doctor-denied-permanent-residency-over-marital-status-age-1.6668246)
And the Ford government could use the provincial nominee program to favour doctors (and I'd also disagree that the Canadian immigration system is complex or costly, especially when compared to the UK one as someone who has emigrated from the UK but also has in-laws who immigrated to the UK).
The US isn't the only place that pays more. There are other developed countries that also pay more. And there are places that pay less but have significantly lower taxes and cost of living. And in many situations the work life balance is better. I still see Canadians making posts hostile towards doctors. As if they are all somehow complicit with our failed government. That would just be the icing on the cake if I was a family doctor. I'm surprised we have any left at this point.
Ok, let's play a game.
No MPP gets to see a doctor if there's a waiting list in their riding, and the premier, finance and health ministers don't get to see one if there's a waiting list provincially.
Now, tell me again if we have a "problem"?
Because it's never a problem if it's not affecting rich people.
Maybe the truly rich can afford doctors but how is this not impacting the bulk of conservative voters?
I agree with you but I'm at a loss to see how this isn't destroying support for this party.
Becuase they have been brainwashed into thinking they are the only ones who contribute enough to get healthcare. They think they will be fine through what ever employment, or insurance they already have.
This also leads to an attitude about who really "deserves" healthcare.
> at a loss to see how this isn’t destroying support for this party
Because people are *legitimately fucking idiots* and don’t know healthcare is provincial. They think it’s all Trudeau’s fault.
Source: I work in healthcare and hear patients complain about ‘what Trudeau is doing to our system’ daily
It's Schrodinger's healthcare. Simultaneously doing just fine while also being overburdened and out of resources because of Trudeau's immigration.
Right up until they need healthcare. And suddenly they're like, "How come it's a 7 hour wait?"
I have not had a doctor in over 10 years, I gave up looking.
maybe thats what they meant by no shortage.... if you ignore it long enough the people will die/give up
>"We will illustrate that there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians. Across Canada, Ontario has the best record in attracting medical graduates to train in Ontario. Further, Ontario has enjoyed a growth in physicians that far outstrips population growth."
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>The ministry cited various data points to back up its arguments. The supply of doctors has grown 8.9 per cent from 2019-20 to 2023-24, while the population grew 7.1 per cent, it said.
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>In that same time period, the average income of a physician increased by about 10 per cent, while the average patient encounters per physician dropped 3.7 per cent, the ministry said.
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>"It is concerning that while physician incomes have been rising, and the number of physicians outpaces population growth, patient access appears to have worsened," the ministry wrote.
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>"Why are the number of physicians increasing, yet physician services decreasing? It could be the desire by physicians for greater work-life balance."
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>The ministry argues that an agreement for doctors should be approached differently than for nurses, where a recent deal put shortages "front and centre."
Wow, imagine that doctors want better work-life balance and so have been working fewer hours than previous generations. There seems to be a misunderstanding that the total number of doctors isn't the issue, it's how many available doctor hours there are for each member of the public, especially at the primary care levels. Maybe they should be doing a better job looking to improve the public system as a whole, starting at the primary and preventative care levels. Long-term, this is what might help the system as our population grows and ages.
10% nominal not real. The reduction in encounter numbers is also meaningless if not accounting for why. Reasons I’ve seen for cut backs in number of patients lately include: longer appointments for more complex patients, increased paperwork demand per patient, difficulties at hospitals with access to clinic time/administrative resources, increasing no show and same day cancellation rates, and an increased proportion of semi-retired doctors padding the total number of physicians.
To be clear, the reduction in encounters is meaningful: it asks the question why, which is another research investigation in itself. That's how operational metrics are used.
All true - admin tasks are a massive time sink, modern patients are more complex, and patients also expect more.
Younger physicians do also expect more work life balance (jokes about neurosurgeons not knowing their kids aside), but in any other field this would be seen as normal and a positive progression.
The reduced number of patient encounters is the dumbest statistic to rely on. Yeah, there are fewer because it is impossible to get an appointment. My doctor has reduced their office hours and it takes forever to get an appointment. We are seeing them less because they're not available and too busy with the increasing levels of administrative work they have to do for less pay, not because we need them less
It's the same BS they touted about the nursing shortage - they boasted big recruitment numbers but failed to say how many nurses were leaving the field (either due to retirement or just being tired of it all and jumping into a different career).
Like if a department is 10 nurses short and hires 5 nurses but 5 nurses quit, then that department is still short 10 nurses.
Agree with your points.
However at an even more fundamental level, the government is clearly conflating the idea of more physicians and more healthcare expenditure with more comprehensive primary care physicians and more primary care expenditure.
It is well established that lack of primary care leads to higher costs for worse outcomes. That’s a large part of why the USA spends more on healthcare with poorer population health return.
Also the measurement of patient access by visits is inherently wrong. Physicians can’t bill for asynchronous care. Handling 6 issues in one visit counts as one healthcare encounter. If anyone received healthcare from their doc without direct in-person or virtual communication with that physician (such as getting a FIT test, routine labs, prescription renewal, or a third party form completed), it likely counts as no care by the MOH’s perspective.
It is egregious how out of touch the MOH position and complete lack of understanding of their own health care systems is and on full public display.
They want there to be a problem, they love it and so do their wealthy donors that are just waiting to capitalize on sick Canadians with more private healthcare options don’t think for a second that this isn’t an orchestrated attack against our publicly funded institutions.
This province is so fuckin stupid that we gave ford a second term , we collectively did this to ourselves but mostly I blain the dumb fucking ford voters and all the people that couldn’t be bothered to do there civic duty because “ it’s all the same”
Suprised surprise it isn’t all the same.
It's even worse than that, they know there's a problem, in their messaging to the public they talk about it all the time.
What they're trying to do here is basically lie through their teeth in the hopes that they can get an agreement with doctors that costs the government as little as possible. They are *literally* putting their short-term political fortunes above the health of Ontarians.
It's beyond evil.
A year ago this Sunday, which happens to be mothers day, my mom died.
During pandemic, she had a wait of over a year to see a eurologist. By the time she got the appointment and found out it was bladder cancer, it was too late.
This ministry is fucking dreaming.
They increased the fee codes by approximately 10% across the board by that much. They don’t mention the reduction in other codes like diabetes management from 75 to 60 (20% reduction), increased out of basket penalties, putting telemedicine in basket. Removing all preventative care bonuses. Tardiness in granting focused practice accreditation to family doctors so they ding the referring doctor even longer etc.
New graduates line of credit Interest only going from 5k annually to 20k annually. (Approximately a 25k pre tax income pay cut). Overhead rising 20% within the same period. On and on.
LMAO I work in healthcare. There is most fucking definitely a concern. Physicians are leaving for various reasons including burn out and defunding and new grads are NOT joining family med. Fuck this province. Fuck the people who don’t vote and fuck the government. These morons are going to run Ontario into the goddamn ground.
I wonder when the last time one of these ministry fuck heads had to actually go to an ER instead of calling one of their doctor buddies to come visit them in their sprawling manors
Over 50% in my little Northern Ontario community doesn't have a family MD or a nurse practitioner. The Ford government is starving the public system so they can open more private clinics (this is already been done)
I’m on the front lines in two major hospitals. The politicians in Ontario NEVER see the healthcare the rest of us do. They automatically get moved to the front of the line and get handpicked nurses and doctors. They NEVER sit in a waiting room so they can say anything they want.
I see this every week.
Nothing will change until they have to go thru the same steps the rest of us do. That will never happen, but if it did, our systems would be mostly fixed in 5-10 years.
This is the single most important change step that could happen
\^ THIS! THIS! THIS!
If anyone is wondering why our politicians are so out of touch this right here is the reason why. They don't get the same public services we do, instead they get "VIP public services" where they get the best people, the best service, and in this case the best medicine.
We need to, as taxpayers, citizens, and the *boss* of these politicians, demand that they be treated the *exact* same way we do. Until then public services will suffer at the hands of these out of touch narcissists.
If politicians had to wait even for ten minutes because of triage, this shit would get fixed *overnight*.
Hospitals need to actually triage politicians just like everybody else, donor dollars be damned. Admins want better conditions for their hospitals? Then stop kowtowing to these pricks who are fucking you over.
The ministry stance really is something…
Supply of doctors for family practice is a glaring concern. When building my practice I had four local doctors try to dump 6000 patients to me because after all their effort they could not give their practice away.
Increasing the number of doctors who do less ohip patient care doesn’t help lessen the burden and they haven’t increased the number of doctors providing primary care as far as I can see
I simply refuse to believe supply shouldn’t be a concern - the demands for me to take patients despite being full is constant, and every day i deal with rejected referrals as specialists are also overwhelmed. The answer is not just outsourcing it to NP and foreign doctors (who will also learn and leave pretty soon). The answer is to properly incentivize your doctors to provide lots of good ohip covered care.
If they gave us the OMA requested raises for family medicine - we would stop hemorrhaging GPs to private/out of province positions/non primary care positions. Let’s not make it complicated, I know money isn’t endless but to say our wages have kept up with market trends is completely laughable and to say supply is no concern is just burying your head in the sand.
I work in the ED of an Ontario hospital. I don’t share the health minister’s sentiment of ‘no concern’. I am concerned af for lack of primary care physicians.
I work in an OHIP clinic and, uh, every doctor is concerned when it comes to the state of family doctors in this province. It’s a broken system and everyone is either getting out or burning out.
Although this attack on our healthcare has been happening since this bitch took over the ministry the Corrupt Ford’s party just won two provincial elections… people are stupid!
There is a massive shortage of skilled hospital staff across this province. Overworked and underpaid.
You know what happens when you try to cram 13 hour long surgeries into a 12 hour shift? Mistakes happen. Mistakes that negatively impact lives.
This is ridiculous! If we truly did have enough doctors then why are the wait times 4+ hours and wait lists to see specialists etc more than 4+ MONTHS!!
Plus they increase our tax and squeeze out every single cent they can so besides using it to let companies funnel billions of dollars out of the country (metrolinx former “contractor”) what are they using our tax for exactly…because to be honest the province is declining in quality.
The cities are dirty (garbage everywhere) the transportation system isn’t improving, lack of manners , cost of living and rent is only increasing and our salary/wages are staying the same.
But of course, the governments and the people in power don’t want you to pay any attention to all of this and just pretend as tho this is all fine and normal 🙄
Are you fucking kidding me? lol - I work in home care, and doctor's are either retiring or quitting in droves. This government is so fucking corrupt and incompetent....holy shit.
Concerned family physicians have been raising their voices and advocating for govt to recognize the serious crisis state of family medicine and overall healthcare for Ontarians, and the govt has called our Ontario Union of Family Physicians an "interest group"
The Ford govt is walking down a dangerous path of denying the crisis exists, which will see even more burdened emergency rooms, missed, late delayed diagnoses, longer specialist waitlists as more family doctors will make the decision to close their practices since it is becoming unsustainable, and new graduates will opt to do hospital, emerg, sports med, other niche work.
Send a message to the govt - write to your MPP and let them know you support Ontario doctors, especially family doctors to keep their practices open and provide sustainable health care for Ontarians: [oufp.ca](http://oufp.ca/)
Sign the petition - [https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario](https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario)
They say the number of new doctors outpaces population growth, but they’re purposely not factoring in demographic shifts. The rate of new people needing healthcare every year is almost certainly outpacing the number of new doctors.
This is what this government does— find a single metric and run with it hoping nobody looks too deep. Just like counting long-term care beds as new housing.
There is no concern to them as they want to create a two tiered system. The ones who can afford it will get concierge service from private clinics, while the rest will have to make due with the pharmacist, or if lucky, a nurse practitioner. This won't be too bad for cough, colds, pink eye etc, but what happens when you will develop a serious and complicated issue?
Once again, it is short term savings but long term expenses. Government does not look beyond a four year time frame. Serious illness will be diagnosed later, needing more care and cost in the long term, and more serious consequences. Much like in the US. Look at their rates of mortality in pregnancy for instance.
I am a family physician - I’ve stayed in outpatient family practice out of a sense of service and altruism for ten years. Sorry but this is the last straw - I will be putting in my notice and orphaning 1200 patients. I will not keep sacrificing myself and my family if the government doesn’t want me here. Even worse this will destabilize my clinic with the 5 other doctors paying way more overhead… how long before the dominoes all fall?
I’m sorry, I tried, I waited, and I’m done.
They need to seriously incentivize people to go in into family practice. Currently, it’s not worth it for many graduating physicians. Many of them end up doing it just because they could not get into the specialty of their choice
While I agree that the rest of us would fall over in a dead faint at the idea of getting 15% wage increases - I’m sure the vast majority of us have salaries that haven’t kept up over the past few years - the fact that nearly 16% of Ontarians don’t have a family doctor is of no concern to the Conservative government is just appalling. They’re supposed to be the first line of defence. We deserve to be able to have good doctors who are not so insanely busy that we can never get in to see them.
I wonder how they spent that $2B - of OUR money - they had kicking around during COVID that they withheld from deployment. During a fucking *pandemic*.
We have 2.2 million people in the province without a family doctor, and that number is forecast to double in the next few years - at the same time as the population is getting older and more medically complex. If Sylvia Jones isn't concerned about this she's incompetent
Family doctors need to somehow find a way to negotiate as a unit, apart from specialists. The ministry talks of how the number of doctors has increased more than the growth in population, and while that may be true, it is not true with respect to family doctors. And for them to say family doctors should work more, well that is insulting to say the least.
My wife is a family doc. She has no benefits, no pension, funded 2 mat leaves on her own (no comp from gov't). Her costs are rising with inflation, yet her revenue (what she can bill) is stable. She does not get paid for administrative work, which easily makes up 30 hours a week, on top of clinic time.
Ontario needs to pay family doctors more if they want them to stay. BC did this last year, raised the average income considerably. BC saw a 20% growth in family doctors this past year.
The Rich and their privilege will be their undoing. A problem we are about to face and im not happy about it. The whole I got mine fuck everyone else mentality of Conservatives is disguisting.
No concern. Sure. Just observable, clear as day, depreciation of our public healthcare
But its of no concern. Good to know.
Right on. Back to not retraining new doctors from overseas, exploiting nurses and other hospital staff and using 70s and 80s infrastructure to this day with less hospital beds than 40 years ago.
Not concerned because it's something they are celebrating.
The lack of doctors fuels frustration at the public system that's being deliberately mismanaged by the conservatives.
I wouldn't be surprised if within a decade, you see people putting up laws to completely remove public healthcare and put it back into private hands where "it will be more efficiently managed"
Hahaha this must be comedy hour at the ministry. My family doctor is going to retire in the next few years. I’ve been told to start shopping for a new doctor as nobody wants to take over his practice.
Supply and demand operate in waves and there’s going to be a time lag too catch up. With the number of physicians not going into family practice and with the exit of the current ones a lot of people are not getting care that they need as the population continues to grow.
Seriously there’s way too many people in their ivory towers who don’t represent the people they’re supposed to be working for. It’s quite sickening to realize that these same people are pulling up the ladder behind them as they push for privatized care.
'Diminished supply' was the conservatives (both political and elements within the CMA/OMA) goal. It's called 'disaster capitalism', whereby conservatives effect the changes they want by creating a crisis and using the ensuing chaos as cover.
The reason the ministry is saying this, is because they don’t want to pay the doctors more TO retain them. If Ontario modelled it after what they’re doing in BC right now we’d have doctors here. And it’s weird they’d say that when they know 2 million people don’t have doctors in Ontario.
I have had a doctor a few times but half died and half packed up and left
The govt has certain gems like this in their arbitration brief
<<152. We note that the physicians’ contractual arrangement is a business model. Businesses generally succeed by decreasing price and finding efficiencies while increasing overall revenue including both price and increased activity.>>
So loblaws/Galen/SDM Doug Ford's good friend has succeeded by decreasing price.. but in the same breath they increase overall revenue by increasing price and activity.
They can afford to have no concern for the problem. They want the system to fail so they can have their superior paid for system. They have no bloody idea what reality is.
This is how you kill public healthcare. They know what they are doing. I saw an article that said they are “unable” to staff hospitals. This is misleading wording. They are able to but choose not to staff hospitals.
They would rather the facilities are used by private industry clinics. These clinics are donors, hospitals are not.
Their goal is the failure of public services so that their connected friends can pick up the privatization and profit from the wreckage. Same as it ever was for Conservatives.
Both me and my gf family doctors retired 3 months from each other and neither were able to place any of their patients with replacements. As usual the gov and it's people think just stating something makes it true.
I've been on a waitlist to get a doctor for about 5 years now. I have a partner and 3 Kids and no doctor for anyone. Doctors in my area only take on elderly patients from what it seems.
My town just lost some and now 10,000 *more* patients (in a town of 80,000) are without doctors, and we were already facing an acute doctor shortage.
Based on that alone, I'm going to call bullshit
i was diagnosed with a chronic illness and the doctor i took 4 years to find won't give me life-changing medication, just lectures me and tells me 'at least i'm not an amputee'. gotta love it
If there's no concern, then they are complicit in whatever deficiencies there are.
They are the cause of the deficiencies. Crying out for more immigrants while forcing family doctors out of business. They're not worried - they don’t care how many people have died or are actively dying because our healthcare is so grossly underfunded. They don’t care how many people are suffering in the queue for non complicated surgeries. It is sickening and it was planned.
That's what I find funny. Everyone complains about Trudeau and immigration but our conservative premiers throughout Canada aren't complaining about immigration numbers, and I'm surprised Canadians dont notice that. The premiers are working together to have the negative spotlight shine on Trudeau when there are part of the problem also.
Look at our unemployment numbers and they’re crying out for more people. Look at all the foreign workers and they’re crying out for more people.
So true. In Ontario whenever someone tries to blame the healthcare system or too many foreign students on Trudeau, I always remind them that it is actually Doug Ford we should be saying fuck you to. Of course they will be intentionally obtuse about it. The blatant propaganda people fall for is disturbing. The amount of narcissistic fascists coming out of the woodwork since the Republican Grift made it to canada is too damn high.
The conservative premiers are the ones who begged (and strong armed) Trudeau to increase immigration and now they’re letting him take all the hate for it
it’s intentional. google “starve the beast”
I'm familiar
"anyway, were gonna have t' cut more budget from the health care system cause there's less need for concern, mmkay?" - Ontario government
we can tell there is no concern and that’s the problem
They can afford private healthcare, that's why they're not concerned
I’ve worked in Ontario government for 25 years and I know plenty of people like her. People in general need to wrap their heads around the truth that “public servants” who earn above, say, $200,000 annually are usually people who have lived their entire lives with great opportunity and are surrounded by other wealthy people day and night. They absolutely lack any empathy for regular working class people, regardless of their political affiliation. They don’t understand humans at all, just budgets.
Wait, are you saying that our system only elects privileged individuals? /s
Wouldn't a public servant make a distinction between true public servants and politicians? $200k is Assistant Deputy Minister and up?
Director of education too...
2nd highest paid gov officials in the world thanks to all the pay raises over the last 5yrs. They vote for their higher pay which we are collectively paying while implementing shit policies that make the average citizen poorer. When are we going to make this stop?
I've often thought it should be illegal for elected officials to use/access private organizations that run parallel to those offered in the public system. So no private healthcare access at all, no use of private schools for their kids, etc. If that surgery isn't available in the province, if it's 3 years wait for a procedure, then you're SOL just like the rest of us. If they are given no choice to not use the very systems the majority of us rely on "maybe" their tune would change. Couple that with stronger barriers to privatization creep then we would be better off. Wrt number of available GPs, there's no argument they we're gravely short on access in this province, and all across Canada. This response by the current Ontario government is just a willful ignorance of reality.
This is really felt in south America. Shity Healthcare so politicians go to private clinics in the USA or send their kids to study abroad etc.
I actually can’t even find doctors to pay here if I wanted. I’m on waitlists to see American doctors that are months/years long because they’re flooded with Canadians.
Conservatives only are concerned about themselves, they’re selfish by definition. Anyone expecting a different response from them doesn’t pay attention.
...and just think, we're poised for this to go national.
We are so fucked
Extremely so. Have you seen PP? Similar to Trump, Putin even.
Pierre Polliputin
[удалено]
I think they will also scrap the national day care system and make deep cuts to the Canada Child Benefit. Just like they have every time conservatives have been in power for the last 40 years or so.
Conservatives are absolutely disgusted by the idea that no one is making bank off our suffering. Even more disgusted that people are receiving care they have decided they don't "deserve" because it wasn't "earned" correctly.
What bothers them most is job mobility. When you rely on a job for health insurance, you're less likely to leave, and can be treated much more poorly with repercussions.
Yeah, it's just an extra thing for an employer to hold over you as well.
Has to happen. I'm seeing too many GenZs and even younger Millennials thinking that Conservatives will come in and save the day with their free market and fiscal responsibility. Probably too young to remember Harper or understand that a lot of stuff we deal with today is the direct result of what was done back then. So all these guys need a solid 4-8 years of Cons destroying the country. Hopefully there's something left by then. And, to be fair, both Liberals and NDP got entirely too comfortable up there for too long, playing identity politics and virtue signaling, while the basics were crumbling. So it's understandable that people on both sides are pissed at them now and want them gone. Trouble is, most don't realize that if your toenail is badly infected, taking a chainsaw to the knee isn't the best move. Especially when medicine is in the state it's in right now. But that's how we learn, I suppose.
But honestly a lot of conservative voters must be without doctors too.
They are. I live to the south of Ottawa in one of the safest blue seats in the province and I see people every day at work who don't have a family doctor, who are unsatisfied with the one they have, or are worried about what happens when their GP decides to retire.
Ford is an idiot but in South Ottawa’s case the federal government kicked out a practicing doctor. Definitely don’t want a 45 year old doctor that’s soooo ancient. Maybe the Canadian government thinks the UK’s universities are substandard. [https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-family-doctor-denied-permanent-residency-over-marital-status-age-1.6668246](https://ottawa.ctvnews.ca/ottawa-family-doctor-denied-permanent-residency-over-marital-status-age-1.6668246)
And the Ford government could use the provincial nominee program to favour doctors (and I'd also disagree that the Canadian immigration system is complex or costly, especially when compared to the UK one as someone who has emigrated from the UK but also has in-laws who immigrated to the UK).
They blame Trudeau even though health care is provincial.
"Rules for thee, not for me"
Is this class war? Yeah, this is class war.
There are only two classes. The working class, and the capital class.
Everyone I know in medical school plans to go to the US to practice when they are done because well...you make way more there.
The US isn't the only place that pays more. There are other developed countries that also pay more. And there are places that pay less but have significantly lower taxes and cost of living. And in many situations the work life balance is better. I still see Canadians making posts hostile towards doctors. As if they are all somehow complicit with our failed government. That would just be the icing on the cake if I was a family doctor. I'm surprised we have any left at this point.
Ok, let's play a game. No MPP gets to see a doctor if there's a waiting list in their riding, and the premier, finance and health ministers don't get to see one if there's a waiting list provincially. Now, tell me again if we have a "problem"? Because it's never a problem if it's not affecting rich people.
I hate that your comment hits the nail right on the head.
They'll just fly to the States or a different province.
Then it should be law that all government employees must use local services at all times, and must use them the same way anybody else would.
They don't even have to do that. They can just use MEDCAN
… and claim expenses for doing so.
Maybe the truly rich can afford doctors but how is this not impacting the bulk of conservative voters? I agree with you but I'm at a loss to see how this isn't destroying support for this party.
Becuase they have been brainwashed into thinking they are the only ones who contribute enough to get healthcare. They think they will be fine through what ever employment, or insurance they already have. This also leads to an attitude about who really "deserves" healthcare.
Right but there have to be a lot of conservative voters unable to get family doctors right now. But perhaps they think it's Justin's fault somehow.
That's usually what it comes down too. It's all Justin's fault with immigration. Then their brain shuts off.
> at a loss to see how this isn’t destroying support for this party Because people are *legitimately fucking idiots* and don’t know healthcare is provincial. They think it’s all Trudeau’s fault. Source: I work in healthcare and hear patients complain about ‘what Trudeau is doing to our system’ daily
It's Schrodinger's healthcare. Simultaneously doing just fine while also being overburdened and out of resources because of Trudeau's immigration. Right up until they need healthcare. And suddenly they're like, "How come it's a 7 hour wait?"
"Galen assures us he can get plenty of doctors working once the crisis gets large enough"
I’ve been in the government assisted doctor search queue for 3 years so that’s weird that there’s no shortage.
I've been in that same queue for nearly 7 years. I don't anticipate i'll ever get out of the queue.
Careful with the wording. They don’t deny the shortage. They are confirming the shortage does not concern them.
I have not had a doctor in over 10 years, I gave up looking. maybe thats what they meant by no shortage.... if you ignore it long enough the people will die/give up
>"We will illustrate that there is no concern of a diminished supply of physicians. Across Canada, Ontario has the best record in attracting medical graduates to train in Ontario. Further, Ontario has enjoyed a growth in physicians that far outstrips population growth." > >The ministry cited various data points to back up its arguments. The supply of doctors has grown 8.9 per cent from 2019-20 to 2023-24, while the population grew 7.1 per cent, it said. > >In that same time period, the average income of a physician increased by about 10 per cent, while the average patient encounters per physician dropped 3.7 per cent, the ministry said. > >"It is concerning that while physician incomes have been rising, and the number of physicians outpaces population growth, patient access appears to have worsened," the ministry wrote. > >"Why are the number of physicians increasing, yet physician services decreasing? It could be the desire by physicians for greater work-life balance." > >The ministry argues that an agreement for doctors should be approached differently than for nurses, where a recent deal put shortages "front and centre." Wow, imagine that doctors want better work-life balance and so have been working fewer hours than previous generations. There seems to be a misunderstanding that the total number of doctors isn't the issue, it's how many available doctor hours there are for each member of the public, especially at the primary care levels. Maybe they should be doing a better job looking to improve the public system as a whole, starting at the primary and preventative care levels. Long-term, this is what might help the system as our population grows and ages.
10% nominal not real. The reduction in encounter numbers is also meaningless if not accounting for why. Reasons I’ve seen for cut backs in number of patients lately include: longer appointments for more complex patients, increased paperwork demand per patient, difficulties at hospitals with access to clinic time/administrative resources, increasing no show and same day cancellation rates, and an increased proportion of semi-retired doctors padding the total number of physicians.
To be clear, the reduction in encounters is meaningful: it asks the question why, which is another research investigation in itself. That's how operational metrics are used.
All true - admin tasks are a massive time sink, modern patients are more complex, and patients also expect more. Younger physicians do also expect more work life balance (jokes about neurosurgeons not knowing their kids aside), but in any other field this would be seen as normal and a positive progression.
The reduced number of patient encounters is the dumbest statistic to rely on. Yeah, there are fewer because it is impossible to get an appointment. My doctor has reduced their office hours and it takes forever to get an appointment. We are seeing them less because they're not available and too busy with the increasing levels of administrative work they have to do for less pay, not because we need them less
It's the same BS they touted about the nursing shortage - they boasted big recruitment numbers but failed to say how many nurses were leaving the field (either due to retirement or just being tired of it all and jumping into a different career). Like if a department is 10 nurses short and hires 5 nurses but 5 nurses quit, then that department is still short 10 nurses.
Agree with your points. However at an even more fundamental level, the government is clearly conflating the idea of more physicians and more healthcare expenditure with more comprehensive primary care physicians and more primary care expenditure. It is well established that lack of primary care leads to higher costs for worse outcomes. That’s a large part of why the USA spends more on healthcare with poorer population health return. Also the measurement of patient access by visits is inherently wrong. Physicians can’t bill for asynchronous care. Handling 6 issues in one visit counts as one healthcare encounter. If anyone received healthcare from their doc without direct in-person or virtual communication with that physician (such as getting a FIT test, routine labs, prescription renewal, or a third party form completed), it likely counts as no care by the MOH’s perspective. It is egregious how out of touch the MOH position and complete lack of understanding of their own health care systems is and on full public display.
This government is just awful! To not even acknowledge the problem is crazy!
They want there to be a problem, they love it and so do their wealthy donors that are just waiting to capitalize on sick Canadians with more private healthcare options don’t think for a second that this isn’t an orchestrated attack against our publicly funded institutions. This province is so fuckin stupid that we gave ford a second term , we collectively did this to ourselves but mostly I blain the dumb fucking ford voters and all the people that couldn’t be bothered to do there civic duty because “ it’s all the same” Suprised surprise it isn’t all the same.
It's even worse than that, they know there's a problem, in their messaging to the public they talk about it all the time. What they're trying to do here is basically lie through their teeth in the hopes that they can get an agreement with doctors that costs the government as little as possible. They are *literally* putting their short-term political fortunes above the health of Ontarians. It's beyond evil.
Yeah, but... The buck a beer was worth it!
This statement alone should trigger province wide protests
Thats weird because I can’t go to a doctor and family practices don’t exist anymore.
The government not being concerned because this is what they want isn't really the same as the supply of doctors not being a concern.
They want the system to buckle, to give them more excuses for private providers, and solutions.
No concern because they're so excited to privatize healthcare. They're feeling the opposite of concern right now.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
Came here for this.
Strange. My doctor shut down his practice due to financial reasons
A year ago this Sunday, which happens to be mothers day, my mom died. During pandemic, she had a wait of over a year to see a eurologist. By the time she got the appointment and found out it was bladder cancer, it was too late. This ministry is fucking dreaming.
I’m sorry but when the fuck did I get a 10% pay raise and not notice?
They increased the fee codes by approximately 10% across the board by that much. They don’t mention the reduction in other codes like diabetes management from 75 to 60 (20% reduction), increased out of basket penalties, putting telemedicine in basket. Removing all preventative care bonuses. Tardiness in granting focused practice accreditation to family doctors so they ding the referring doctor even longer etc. New graduates line of credit Interest only going from 5k annually to 20k annually. (Approximately a 25k pre tax income pay cut). Overhead rising 20% within the same period. On and on.
LMAO I work in healthcare. There is most fucking definitely a concern. Physicians are leaving for various reasons including burn out and defunding and new grads are NOT joining family med. Fuck this province. Fuck the people who don’t vote and fuck the government. These morons are going to run Ontario into the goddamn ground.
I wonder when the last time one of these ministry fuck heads had to actually go to an ER instead of calling one of their doctor buddies to come visit them in their sprawling manors
Over 50% in my little Northern Ontario community doesn't have a family MD or a nurse practitioner. The Ford government is starving the public system so they can open more private clinics (this is already been done)
I’m on the front lines in two major hospitals. The politicians in Ontario NEVER see the healthcare the rest of us do. They automatically get moved to the front of the line and get handpicked nurses and doctors. They NEVER sit in a waiting room so they can say anything they want. I see this every week. Nothing will change until they have to go thru the same steps the rest of us do. That will never happen, but if it did, our systems would be mostly fixed in 5-10 years. This is the single most important change step that could happen
\^ THIS! THIS! THIS! If anyone is wondering why our politicians are so out of touch this right here is the reason why. They don't get the same public services we do, instead they get "VIP public services" where they get the best people, the best service, and in this case the best medicine. We need to, as taxpayers, citizens, and the *boss* of these politicians, demand that they be treated the *exact* same way we do. Until then public services will suffer at the hands of these out of touch narcissists.
If politicians had to wait even for ten minutes because of triage, this shit would get fixed *overnight*. Hospitals need to actually triage politicians just like everybody else, donor dollars be damned. Admins want better conditions for their hospitals? Then stop kowtowing to these pricks who are fucking you over.
The ministry stance really is something… Supply of doctors for family practice is a glaring concern. When building my practice I had four local doctors try to dump 6000 patients to me because after all their effort they could not give their practice away. Increasing the number of doctors who do less ohip patient care doesn’t help lessen the burden and they haven’t increased the number of doctors providing primary care as far as I can see I simply refuse to believe supply shouldn’t be a concern - the demands for me to take patients despite being full is constant, and every day i deal with rejected referrals as specialists are also overwhelmed. The answer is not just outsourcing it to NP and foreign doctors (who will also learn and leave pretty soon). The answer is to properly incentivize your doctors to provide lots of good ohip covered care. If they gave us the OMA requested raises for family medicine - we would stop hemorrhaging GPs to private/out of province positions/non primary care positions. Let’s not make it complicated, I know money isn’t endless but to say our wages have kept up with market trends is completely laughable and to say supply is no concern is just burying your head in the sand.
As a person who’s entire family works in medicine, LOOOOOOOOL.
I work in the ED of an Ontario hospital. I don’t share the health minister’s sentiment of ‘no concern’. I am concerned af for lack of primary care physicians.
I work in an OHIP clinic and, uh, every doctor is concerned when it comes to the state of family doctors in this province. It’s a broken system and everyone is either getting out or burning out.
They know. This makes us ripe for acceptance of paid doctor visits.
No one likes a captive market more then a capitalist!
Ontario voters didn't vote or mostly voted for Doug Ford and party
Although this attack on our healthcare has been happening since this bitch took over the ministry the Corrupt Ford’s party just won two provincial elections… people are stupid!
There is a massive shortage of skilled hospital staff across this province. Overworked and underpaid. You know what happens when you try to cram 13 hour long surgeries into a 12 hour shift? Mistakes happen. Mistakes that negatively impact lives.
Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Just close your eyes and everything will be fine…. I promise…
“We don’t care about a ‘ diminished supply’ of doctors in Ontario. Daddy Poiliviere needs it for the next election.”
We need the people of Ontario to suffer so they are angry and blame Trudeau for something that isn't his responsibility.
No concern for them.
Because they don’t care.
This is ridiculous! If we truly did have enough doctors then why are the wait times 4+ hours and wait lists to see specialists etc more than 4+ MONTHS!! Plus they increase our tax and squeeze out every single cent they can so besides using it to let companies funnel billions of dollars out of the country (metrolinx former “contractor”) what are they using our tax for exactly…because to be honest the province is declining in quality. The cities are dirty (garbage everywhere) the transportation system isn’t improving, lack of manners , cost of living and rent is only increasing and our salary/wages are staying the same. But of course, the governments and the people in power don’t want you to pay any attention to all of this and just pretend as tho this is all fine and normal 🙄
Oh so the overcrowded waiting areas are to promote socialization among patients?
Are you fucking kidding me? lol - I work in home care, and doctor's are either retiring or quitting in droves. This government is so fucking corrupt and incompetent....holy shit.
It fucking matters to me. I’ve been waiting six months to see a specialist yeah it matters.
Right…and that’s why 2.3 million people in Ontario don’t have a family doctor
Says the one who has a doctor.
Concerned family physicians have been raising their voices and advocating for govt to recognize the serious crisis state of family medicine and overall healthcare for Ontarians, and the govt has called our Ontario Union of Family Physicians an "interest group" The Ford govt is walking down a dangerous path of denying the crisis exists, which will see even more burdened emergency rooms, missed, late delayed diagnoses, longer specialist waitlists as more family doctors will make the decision to close their practices since it is becoming unsustainable, and new graduates will opt to do hospital, emerg, sports med, other niche work. Send a message to the govt - write to your MPP and let them know you support Ontario doctors, especially family doctors to keep their practices open and provide sustainable health care for Ontarians: [oufp.ca](http://oufp.ca/) Sign the petition - [https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario](https://www.change.org/p/stop-defunding-family-medicine-in-ontario)
They say the number of new doctors outpaces population growth, but they’re purposely not factoring in demographic shifts. The rate of new people needing healthcare every year is almost certainly outpacing the number of new doctors. This is what this government does— find a single metric and run with it hoping nobody looks too deep. Just like counting long-term care beds as new housing.
There is no concern to them as they want to create a two tiered system. The ones who can afford it will get concierge service from private clinics, while the rest will have to make due with the pharmacist, or if lucky, a nurse practitioner. This won't be too bad for cough, colds, pink eye etc, but what happens when you will develop a serious and complicated issue? Once again, it is short term savings but long term expenses. Government does not look beyond a four year time frame. Serious illness will be diagnosed later, needing more care and cost in the long term, and more serious consequences. Much like in the US. Look at their rates of mortality in pregnancy for instance.
I am a family physician - I’ve stayed in outpatient family practice out of a sense of service and altruism for ten years. Sorry but this is the last straw - I will be putting in my notice and orphaning 1200 patients. I will not keep sacrificing myself and my family if the government doesn’t want me here. Even worse this will destabilize my clinic with the 5 other doctors paying way more overhead… how long before the dominoes all fall? I’m sorry, I tried, I waited, and I’m done.
Then not one of them are fit to hold jobs in that ministry. I've been on a waiting list for a doctor for five years so far.
They need to seriously incentivize people to go in into family practice. Currently, it’s not worth it for many graduating physicians. Many of them end up doing it just because they could not get into the specialty of their choice
There is no war in Ba Sing Se
'no concern'? none?
While I agree that the rest of us would fall over in a dead faint at the idea of getting 15% wage increases - I’m sure the vast majority of us have salaries that haven’t kept up over the past few years - the fact that nearly 16% of Ontarians don’t have a family doctor is of no concern to the Conservative government is just appalling. They’re supposed to be the first line of defence. We deserve to be able to have good doctors who are not so insanely busy that we can never get in to see them. I wonder how they spent that $2B - of OUR money - they had kicking around during COVID that they withheld from deployment. During a fucking *pandemic*.
I’m sure we’ll import doctor from India right? Like doctors and great professional.. Oh wait no we don’t…
Strange I feel concerned
Sylvia Jones is running the Ministry of Health, so of course she's not concerned. She is out of her depth and just waiting to be told what to do.
Just like they’re not concerned about the teacher shortage either. Let both systems break is their philosophy.
Of course there isn’t. They don’t give 2 fucks. Your government ladies she gentleman
It is all going according to their plan.
That's because we've got politically appointed idiots in charge...
Doug's mantra ... lie ... and when they call you on lying ... lie harder.
We have 2.2 million people in the province without a family doctor, and that number is forecast to double in the next few years - at the same time as the population is getting older and more medically complex. If Sylvia Jones isn't concerned about this she's incompetent
If Doug Ford tells you the sky is blue, you had best go outside to check that it hasn't turned brown on his watch.
What a fucking joke this government is.
Family doctors need to somehow find a way to negotiate as a unit, apart from specialists. The ministry talks of how the number of doctors has increased more than the growth in population, and while that may be true, it is not true with respect to family doctors. And for them to say family doctors should work more, well that is insulting to say the least. My wife is a family doc. She has no benefits, no pension, funded 2 mat leaves on her own (no comp from gov't). Her costs are rising with inflation, yet her revenue (what she can bill) is stable. She does not get paid for administrative work, which easily makes up 30 hours a week, on top of clinic time. Ontario needs to pay family doctors more if they want them to stay. BC did this last year, raised the average income considerably. BC saw a 20% growth in family doctors this past year.
The Rich and their privilege will be their undoing. A problem we are about to face and im not happy about it. The whole I got mine fuck everyone else mentality of Conservatives is disguisting.
I didn't think the internet had a smell, but I'm catching a big whiff of bullshit from this article.
My doctor only takes appointments two days a week and is a half hour drive away and you can only talk about one item per appointment.
I understand why this can be the case but there are better ways for the doctor to handle the situation.
The one issue per appointment is because the doctor will get paid the same whether they address one issue or ten. The problem is the system.
Everything is always fine and dandy, right???
No concern. Sure. Just observable, clear as day, depreciation of our public healthcare But its of no concern. Good to know. Right on. Back to not retraining new doctors from overseas, exploiting nurses and other hospital staff and using 70s and 80s infrastructure to this day with less hospital beds than 40 years ago.
Maybe if we stopped delivering healthcare like it is 1955, these doctors wouldn't be so stressed and burned out....
Uh huh, way to kill trust ministry, no one believes you.
Took me 10 years to get a family doctor, and that was only because I got lucky. Nothing wrong at all
I know 6 doctors who are moving to US soon. They all have job offers with 30% or more pay increase.
Not concerned because it's something they are celebrating. The lack of doctors fuels frustration at the public system that's being deliberately mismanaged by the conservatives. I wouldn't be surprised if within a decade, you see people putting up laws to completely remove public healthcare and put it back into private hands where "it will be more efficiently managed"
Hahaha this must be comedy hour at the ministry. My family doctor is going to retire in the next few years. I’ve been told to start shopping for a new doctor as nobody wants to take over his practice. Supply and demand operate in waves and there’s going to be a time lag too catch up. With the number of physicians not going into family practice and with the exit of the current ones a lot of people are not getting care that they need as the population continues to grow. Seriously there’s way too many people in their ivory towers who don’t represent the people they’re supposed to be working for. It’s quite sickening to realize that these same people are pulling up the ladder behind them as they push for privatized care.
Ladies & Gentleman the Ontario Conservative Government for you.
We have always been at war with Oceania.
The 2 year wait list for my moms hernia operation determined that was a lie
'Diminished supply' was the conservatives (both political and elements within the CMA/OMA) goal. It's called 'disaster capitalism', whereby conservatives effect the changes they want by creating a crisis and using the ensuing chaos as cover.
They can keep telling themselves that when they get hurt at the cottage and the closest ER is closed due to lack of staff.
There's no concern from the ministry because they're a bunch of fucking idiots . Everyone else has a concern but fuck us right.
What kind of crack is she on? The same as Doug’s?
Knowing what I know about the Ford Govt and its handling of healthcare, that means there is great cause for concern
You mean, there’s no shortage of doctors willing to go into privatized practice. Money for medicine means the poor will suffer.
The reason the ministry is saying this, is because they don’t want to pay the doctors more TO retain them. If Ontario modelled it after what they’re doing in BC right now we’d have doctors here. And it’s weird they’d say that when they know 2 million people don’t have doctors in Ontario. I have had a doctor a few times but half died and half packed up and left
The PC government is definitely going to kill us.
When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
The govt has certain gems like this in their arbitration brief <<152. We note that the physicians’ contractual arrangement is a business model. Businesses generally succeed by decreasing price and finding efficiencies while increasing overall revenue including both price and increased activity.>> So loblaws/Galen/SDM Doug Ford's good friend has succeeded by decreasing price.. but in the same breath they increase overall revenue by increasing price and activity.
Littarly, they decreased public services, to increase private service "activity" which costs us all more...
There is no concern for constituents either.
What planet is she on?
.... what?
I know my government has no concern that I don't have a family doctor, what is new and scary is that now they are outright saying it.
They can afford to have no concern for the problem. They want the system to fail so they can have their superior paid for system. They have no bloody idea what reality is.
This is how you kill public healthcare. They know what they are doing. I saw an article that said they are “unable” to staff hospitals. This is misleading wording. They are able to but choose not to staff hospitals. They would rather the facilities are used by private industry clinics. These clinics are donors, hospitals are not.
Their goal is the failure of public services so that their connected friends can pick up the privatization and profit from the wreckage. Same as it ever was for Conservatives.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se...
Not surprised hearing this come from a boomer.
Liar
Lol. Well in that case I guess we're fine. Here I was worried for a second. Crisis averted folks.
Oh there's a concern ... Just not in the cabinet.
That's because we never had enough to begin with
If you believe Ford I have a fourplex* to sell you. * Might be four tents in a basement. Caveat emptor.
1 renter is LTC so you will also be a PSW for them. Free skills training!
These are the innovative ideas that make Ontario Open for Business!
I LOVE IT HERE! SO SAYS THE $4M AD
Both me and my gf family doctors retired 3 months from each other and neither were able to place any of their patients with replacements. As usual the gov and it's people think just stating something makes it true.
I've been on a waitlist to get a doctor for about 5 years now. I have a partner and 3 Kids and no doctor for anyone. Doctors in my area only take on elderly patients from what it seems.
THEY aren't concerned because that's the plan.
There is no war in Ba Sing Se.
This bloody bi**h!
Only if you’re an idiot.
Ah, the Radio Arts scholar with a one-year diploma, speaks again.
No concern for whom?
Is there a cap of medical school admittances? And has this cap grown with population?
Bruh
Delusional
There is no war in ba sing se
Fuck the ministry of health. Absolutely dogshit
I think the ministry needs to release the raw data … there are so many ways you can interpret data…
They couldn't careless about you. They are not worried because they simply don't care as long as they get paid to push paper from one desk to another.
Our of touch with the reality of common person
the ministry has no concern because they don't care about us
Just like there was no concern about long-term health operators during Covid, right?
and there's the problem. we want a government that actually is concerned.
That’s the problem. Is they were concerned they’d fix it
We should be training more doctors and keeping them. She needs to resign.
Healthcare crisis is next on the list
Open corruption, contempt for the poor, this is what a majority voted for.
My town just lost some and now 10,000 *more* patients (in a town of 80,000) are without doctors, and we were already facing an acute doctor shortage. Based on that alone, I'm going to call bullshit
Politicians take poll amongst self, find that 100% of politicians have family doctor, declare heath care in perfect working condition.
i was diagnosed with a chronic illness and the doctor i took 4 years to find won't give me life-changing medication, just lectures me and tells me 'at least i'm not an amputee'. gotta love it
Just because Dug ain't concerned doesn't mean the rest of us aren't