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Ontario has a new super power.
Granted sweeping authority over the province’s health-care system, the agency dubbed Ontario Health is hailed by the government of Premier Doug Ford as the means to fix ballooning budgets and improve patient care.
But critics have blasted Ontario Health as an agency created in secret with unprecedented powers to shape the health care of millions of people.
As 14 regional health networks are dismantled to make way for Ontario Health, there is debate about whether the agency will wield its power for the good of Ontario’s aging population or wreak havoc on a health system already under strain.
“They have super powers far above and beyond anything other governments have had,” said Linda Haslam-Stroud, former longtime president of the Ontario Nurses’ Association.
The Progressive Conservative government says the super agency — which will oversee everything from hospital and home care to cancer care and family medicine — will reduce “back-office” costs by eliminating administrative duplication and prevent patients from falling through gaps created by a health-care system “locked in silos.”
“Too much time and attention is spent on maintaining a siloed and fragmented system,” said Health Minister Christine Elliott at the announcement Feb. 26. “And far too many people believe it is the patient’s — or the family’s job — to navigate this complicated system during what is already one of the most traumatic and stress-filled periods in their lives. That is just wrong.”
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See Also:
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(4) 15-year study tallies toll of sexual assault in Ontario
(5) Ontario picks Manitoba expert as flooding adviser
