It’s easy to condemn more than 500 Ontario doctors who billed the government for more than a million dollars last year. The list came out showing 12 of them practice in the London area, although names aren’t disclosed.
The Health Minister said the highest biller in Ontario was an opthamologist who took in $6.6 million. Turns out it was an opthamologist billing on behalf of his multi-doctor practice who got that much. But our provincial health minister, Dr. Eric Hoskins, is a physician and he was disgusted at the numbers. But what about the bigger picture?
London’s hospitals, considered among the best in the country, had to cut some staff and services this year because they ran over budget. Provincial rules say they must balance their books. The funding formula hasn’t kept up with market prices. But when the CEOs complain to the media about the high cost of proper health care, not one of them ever mentions executive salaries and perks in the hundreds of thousands each. Salaries account for 60% of hospital expenses. Health care workers should be compensated well, but executive salaries are out of control.
And where does all of that lottery money go? We always buy tickets for the Dream Home Lottery whose proceeds go “directly to London’s hospitals”. My assumption is that it’s kept off the regular books so they can look as needy as possible to the government.
There is no cap on doctor salaries. They are provincial government employees who can bill for as much as they want. Their average income is $368,000 and last fiscal, they spent more than $744 million at their offices. Imagine being as deep in the hole as the Wynne Liberals are, and having this big of a question mark on your spreadsheet every year. Something needs to change. The province imposed some fee cuts last year after, it says, the Ontario Medical Association refused to consider discussing them. Now the OMA is ignoring Hoskins’ requests for talks about more cuts.
We need our physicians and specialists but we also need money for other areas of health care besides the Mercedes payments of the doctors who are unreasonably overpaid.
Canadian health care is in crisis, but that’s nothing new. Unfortunately both sides of the equation are polarised and only interested in addressing symptoms not problems. The funding model is broken, but so is the way we manage and provide health care but if your job depends on being re-elected, there isn’t a hope in hell that you’ll do what is needed verses take the easy way out. Can this issue be fixed, I strongly believe so, just not with those involved.