An ad for a Toronto medical clinic that wants to charge patients more than $450 a year to access key healthcare has residents panicking about privatization of the system.

The poster, spotted on a TTC subway over the weekend, markets a local doctor's office as a "modern private family clinic powered by nurse practitioners" that is actively seeking new clientele — clientele who will be asked to pay a $450 annual fee, plus HST, for services that are supposed to be free in the province.

"Public healthcare is in serious trouble in Ontario," a citizen wrote on Reddit along with a photo of the ad on Sunday. "Please, Ontario, our public healthcare is on the brink and privatization, it's becoming the norm. Resist. Write to your MPP and become politically active."

The post has amassed some 6,000 upvotes and more than 1,400 comments in just two days' time — huge even by the platform's standards.

Public healthcare is in serious trouble in Ontario
byu/Aighd inontario

Based on the branding, the clinic appears to be Care& Family Health, which bills itself as having "accessible, efficient and affordable" care with less wait time than most Ontarians may be used to. That is, those who even have a family doctor (which 2.3 million in the province don't), and/or a nearby emergency room that is actually open.

And, people don't seem too happy about the proliferation of such businesses when it feels as if the province is slowly and deliberately defunding public care to take us in the direction of privatization.

"Doug Ford driving healthcare and education into the ground so that they can both be increasingly privatized," one person aptly commented.

"They're paying private, contracted nurses triple what they pay for publicly employed nurses. They're pumping millions into Shoppers Drug Mart MedsChecks when previously they'd spend a couple hundred thousand on the same thing. They're handing millions to private healthcare and Galen Weston," another wrote.

They are, of course, referencing the recent news that Loblaw-owned Shoppers has been billing the province up to $75 for patient medication reviews, which many are arguing are happening more frequently and when not at all necessary due to pharmacy targets set out by corporate.

Then there was the very suspicious, but thankfully now-reneged exclusive prescription-benefit arrangement between Shoppers Drug Mart and Manulife, likely due to the fact that Manulife's head of group benefits was formerly the EVP of pharmacy at Shoppers.

I've gotten a few of these calls even though my medications haven't changed. I didn't know they charge the government for the calls. I thought they were doing it out of concern foe my health. The jokes is on me. @loblawco @LoblawsON

— jamdowngal🇯🇲🇨🇦 (@paulpfed) February 29, 2024

One person noted that doctors — who are leaving the profession in droves — are being incentivized to move to private care because they are being paid less than $40 for most patient visits, compared to the $75 figure Shoppers pharmacists bill for a brief phone call.

Billing amounts have not kept pace with inflation, many have argued.

"This is around double what your government pays a general practitioner for managing a patient for the full year," the individual wrote of the $450 subscription fee to the &Care clinic. "I would gladly take more patients at this rate personally if that's what they were going to pay us."

Another noted that legislation permits nurse practitioners to skirt certain rules, as "though all of these services should be covered by the Canada Health Act, NPs didn't exist when the act came into play."

And, why wouldn't a healthcare worker choose the private route if it's a permitted, better-paying option that many patients are turning to in a starved system?

Comment
byu/Aighd from discussion
inontario

Healthcare is just one of the public services that residents are fretting about, with many seeming to believe that many aspects of life in the province are in decline.