Solving the Family Health Crisis (Part 3 of 3)

Hey All,

Welcome back to Middle Ground; this is the sixth newsletter as part of our 28 policies in the 28-day series ahead of the 2025 Ontario provincial election.

This is the final newsletter where I’ll tackle the Family Health Crisis with policy suggestions to help ensure everyone in Ontario can access a family doctor by 2030.

Today’s issue will be about increasing medical school seats.

What is the family health crisis?
4.1 million people in Ontario (nearly 25% of the province) do not have a family doctor. This problem is expected to worsen by 2030 as another 2,400 family doctors retire, leaving over 7 million people without a family doctor.

Even for those who do have a family doctor, it often isn’t convenient to visit them. 1 million people have a family doctor more than 50km from their home, and 150,000 have a family doctor more than 200km from their home. 

What makes this scarier is that 75% of deaths in Ontario are from chronic diseases. These deaths can be avoided or delayed with proper diagnosis, monitoring and planning with a family doctor.  

The lack of family doctors is not just a problem for specific individuals; it's a massive societal issue. Poor health creates additional social and financial burdens, putting more stress on our social systems, resulting in more ER visits and overloading our hospitals. It’s estimated that 15% of ER visits are issues a family doctor could deal with, and another 20% are for issues that a family doctor could have prevented. Simply put, we could reduce the burden on hospitals by 30%+ by ensuring everyone has a family doctor.

Why does Ontario have a shortage of new doctors?
Ontario has a massive shortage of education opportunities for medical students. Despite the Ford government recently reserving 95% of medical school seats for Ontarians to prevent foreigners from being educated in Ontario then leaving to practice medicine elsewhere, we still have a fundamental shortage of medical school seats. Ontario has the second lowest amount of medical students per capita in Canada. To put it simply, we are not training enough doctors to take care of our population. 

How can we increase the number of new doctors?
Ontario should increase the amount of pre-med undergraduate programs offered throughout the province to help encourage more students to become nurses and doctors. Currently, for students who are uncommitted to a major when entering university, a general bachelor of arts leading to degrees in english, philosophy, history, maths, etc. is the common path. By increasing the options for pre-med programs, more students with an interest in sciences can enter a stream straight out of high school that leads them toward positions in the medical field. 

In addition, we need to increase the amount of seats in medical schools. This can be accomplished by offering financial benefits to medical schools for each student that enters the Ontario Public Healthcare system and completes a residency in Ontario before opening a practice in Ontario. By rewarding medical schools for adding doctors to Ontario, we encourage them to admit students who show an intention to practice in Ontario and to increase the amount of seats in their classes to maximize the incentives they can receive. 

Further Reading:

• Ontario Family Physicians Report

• Canadian Medical Association Report

Onwards and Upwards,

Liam Gill

P.S. - Please share this with as many people as possible to help grow our community and help us hold our elected officials responsible for implementing these policy initiatives.