The president of Sault Ste. Marie’s largest steelworker union says the de-rostering of thousands of people in this city is a crisis that is being manufactured by the Ontario PC government in an attempt to eventually privatize health care in the province and that party needs to be voted out before they do more harm.
On Thursday, the presidents of more than a dozen unions in the city, including United Steelworkers Local 2251 president Mike Da Prat, penned an open letter to Sault MPP Ross Romano asking for a meeting with him and Sylvia Jones, Ontario’s Minister of Health.
"We are fully aware that the shortage of doctors is a Canada-Wide crisis, however, the situation in Sault Ste. Marie is critical and requires immediate resolution," said the union leaders in the letter. "As you are aware, the Group Health Centre itself has de-rostered 3,000 patients prior to 2024 and is de-rostering 10,000 patients as of May 31, 2024. It was also stated by the Group Health Centre that 6,000 more are at risk."
Also on Thursday, SooToday reported the Group Health Centre is seeking almost $11 million in provincial funding to help prevent a further 6,000 patients from being de-rostered.
Romano hasn’t responded to SooToday’s request for comment on Wednesday afternoon, but a spokesperson for the Minister of Health told our sister site at Queen's Park, The Trillium, that the ministry was only notified by the Group Health Centre (GHC) about the changes just over a week before they were announced publicly.
”The ministry has made several attempts to work with GHC on a possible solution, but GHC made it clear finding an immediate replacement for these patients on such short notice was not achievable,” said Hannah Jensen, a spokesperson Health Minister Sylvia Jones. ”Since these changes were announced, the Ministry has been in constant contact with GHC.”
Jensen said the ministry continues to work with partners in Sault Ste. Marie to ensure people in the region can connect to the primary care they need.
Thursday’s letter follows a March 1 rally outside Romano's office in which approximately 250 people — including unionized workers, healthcare activists and internationally-trained doctors not yet certified to work in Canada — demanded the province address the chronic shortage of primary care providers at Group Health Centre.
"I'm really really upset that games are being played with the health care of the people in Ontario and in Canada, but specifically in Sault Ste. Marie," Da Prat told SooToday in a phone interview Thursday.
In the letter, the labour leaders claim the ministry has denied a grant request from a local doctor that would allow him to train up to 51 internationally trained doctors and health care professionals to practice in Ontario. SooToday has not independently verified that claim.
It also cites a February press release by MP Terry Sheehan's office regarding the $3.1 billion health care funding deal the federal government announced in February.
"We are attaching a news release dated February 28, 2024 wherein it is stated in part 'The agreement will also make it easier for Canadian and internationally trained doctors and health professionals to practice in Ontario, so they spend less time dealing with red tape and more time helping patients in need. This includes removing barriers to foreign credential recognition, simplifying licensing processes, and increasing program access for highly educated and skilled health professionals.'"
Da Prat told SooToday there are a number of steps the provincial government can take to fill the gap in primary care caused by the loss of 10,000 roster spots at the Group Health Centre, which followed 3,000 lost spots last year.
Doctors working in primary care spend an estimated 20 per cent of their time on administrative paperwork, which helps lead to burnout, said Da Prat. If the Ministry of Health was able to fund administrative assistants for primary care physicians, he said that would free up some time for them to see more patients and relieve some of the administrative burden.
Hiring these workers would have an immediate effect, said Da Prat, because they could be put in place with relatively little training versus the years it would take to train new doctors and nurse practitioners.
But Da Prat believes that a broken health care system may be exactly what the Ford government wants.
”The conservatives are pushing privatized health care as the answer,” said Da Prat. “We have the perfect model of privatized health care, and that is in the long-term care homes. They were privatized and people pay their money and don’t get the services they need because they are understaffed.”
”At the onset it'll be great if you can afford it, but once they’ve got the market captured they're going to start going for more efficiencies and bigger profits,” he added.
The solution, said Da Prat, is to use his platform to spread the word that what is happening in Sault Ste. Marie could soon be happening across the province — and the only way out is to vote in a party in the next election that actually wants to fix the problem.
The first organization he is looking to convince is SOAR, the Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees.
”Let's be absolutely clear: I'm hoping to get a big enough coalition that spreads across the province and it's not just one individual,” said Da Prat. "I'm going to try to see the kind of interest I can get because this should be a galvanizing incident for seniors because they're in the dark. They're the targeted group.”
The next provincial election is tentatively scheduled for June 4, 2026.
”The seniors could be a very, very positive force for electing a government and keeping the government accountable,” he said. "We're going to vote because that's the only thing that's gonna freaking affect this right now.”
Sault Ste. Marie was most vulnerable, said Da Prat, because of the Group Health Centre’s model of care, in which a large number of the city’s residents were served by a single organization.
”What we had here is a small enough town that you can see the catastrophic effect immediately,” said Da Prat. “In Toronto, you might have to wait a while to realize, with 3,000 here and 10,000 there [losing their primary care].”
Jensen said the ministry is spending $110 million to add 78 primary care teams that will eventually connect 98 per cent of Ontarians to a primary care provider.
"This expansion will build on our progress launching the largest medical school expansion in over a decade, with over 100 new residency seats at the Northern Ontario School of Medicine,” she said.
Da Prat noted it will take years for an expansion of the number of physicians being trained to make a dent in the primary care crisis in the Sault and across Ontario, unless the government makes a concerted effort to streamline the certification for foreign-trained doctors.
"When people say to me, there's hazards and whatever — you can't tell me that no care is better than internationally trained doctor care,” he said.