2016 Budget Fails to Address Ontario’s #1 Killer: Heart Disease
The 2016 Ontario Budget, tabled in the Ontario Legislature by Finance Minister Charles Sousa today, revealed that the Wynne government has no plan to fight Ontario’s #1 killer: heart disease.
OAC Board member Dr. Murray Matangi speaks out on government cuts
Psychiatrist Janet McCulloch and opthamologist Don Smallman are among the Kingston-area doctors raising alarm over cuts to fees paid to physicians. (Elliot Ferguson/The Whig-Standard)
Ontario’s Cardiac Care Infrastructure Collapsing Due to Government Budget Cuts
Outpatient-based cardiac care in Ontario is on the brink of collapse due to drastic and ill-considered budget cuts by the Wynne government. These cuts, imposed unilaterally by the Wynne government in February, April and October without input from the Ontario Association of Cardiologists (OAC), have begun to damage the infrastructure that supports access to outpatient cardiac care in Ontario. This will risk lives, put further pressure on hospital emergency rooms and drive up costs, while making access to care more difficult for Ontario’s cardiac patients.
OAC President Quoted in The Medical Post
On January 20, The Medical Post, a subscription based magazine published an article on the prospect of the Ontario government publishing OHIP billing data in Ontario. This issue had been raised previously by The Toronto Star in December 2014. OAC President, Dr. Jim Swan, sounds a cautionary note advising that without explanatory wording to help the public better understand the numbers, the publishing of gross billing data would not be very helpful.