Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews says there is a better way for the province to spend the limited health care dollars it has to improve service.
"Every new dollar we put into the system must benefit the health of patients, first, last and always," she says.
Speaking at the Greater Kitchener Waterloo Chamber of Commerce Tuesday morning, she told the crowd the ministry's $47-billion budget isn't changing despite the province's $16-billion deficit.
But she says there is a better way to spend the money and one of the biggest savings can be found by keeping more people out of the hospital.
That includes having some procedures normally done in hospital moved to outside clinics and helping seniors stay at home longer by providing community support for elder care.
Matthews also wants family doctors to broaden their services and Local Health Integration Networks or LHINs to work more closely with front-line physicians.
"Family doctors are really at the very centre, the hub of the access to health care. Family doctors see first hand where the problems are, where their patients are having difficulties accessing services and so bringing them under the umbrella of the LHIN, giving them a voice at the table to find solutions to the problems they've identified is really important. It will be better care for patients," she says.
But there is some opposition to LHINs having more say in what happens.
Kitchener-Conestoga MPP Michael Harris says "Not one health care dollar going into the LHINs provides front-line health care for Ontarians. They expect that, they need that, so yeah we have a problem with the bureaucracy bloating."
Joan Fisk, chair of the Waterloo Wellington LHIN disagrees, saying "I don't think it requires a lot more physical requirements, what it needs is people working together to make it happen."
New programs are also being proposed to prevent health problems in the first place.
Matthews says "Child obesity rates have skyrocketed. We know that obesity leads to diabetes and heart disease. Unchecked these diseases can be fatal. We're not just going to sit back and let that happen, not with our kids."
In Cambridge, there were concerns about what the new plan might mean for plans to improve health care and the local hospital.
But the minister says the long-awaited plans remain on track, "We're taking this step by step forward and there are no plans to slow it down at all. We are moving full steam ahead."
That was welcome news for hospital administrators like Patrick Gaskin at Cambridge Memorial Hospital.
"There's been a strong commitment to move forward and tender our project by 2013 and we're anxious. We had a meeting with ministry staff on Friday and they're go, go, go."
The new action plan was unveiled on Monday, and Matthews says she hopes to see some signs of progress on her action plan to improve health care within a year.
