Ford and Trudeau signed a $3.1 billion health care funding deal that will hire more health care workers in Ontario.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ontario Premier Doug Ford signed an agreement Friday that will see the province spend $3.1 billion in federal health care funding.

As part of the deal, the provincial government is to create new primary health care teams that include family doctors, nurse practitioners, nurse practitioners, pharmacists and social workers. The province will also open 700 more places in medical education programs, including 70 in Northern Ontario – improving health data tracking and reporting by upgrading digital infrastructure across the system.

“Universal health care is a fundamental part of being Canadian. It's the idea that no matter where you live or what you earn, you can always get the care you need,” Trudeau's office said. news release.

“Unfortunately, our health care system has not lived up to expectations,” he continued.

The deal stems from a national health financing summit in February 2023, when the Trudeau government proposed increasing Canada's health care transfer by $46 billion in additional spending, including $25 billion allocated to special agreements with provinces and territories.

While Ontario and the federal government reached an agreement in principle for $8.6 billion over 10 years after the summit, the two sides have been working out the details ever since. The $3.1 billion in the agreement announced Friday covers the first three years of the agreement.

Ontario is the fifth province to sign an agreement with Ottawa, joining BC, Alberta, Nova Scotia and PEI.

Long waits, lack of family doctors

The completed deal comes as Ontario's health care system faces a staffing crisis, with a record number of patients lacking family doctors and the ripple effects causing long wait times in hospital emergency departments.

Last week, Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones announced $110 million to add 400 health professionals to 400 new or expanded primary care teams across the province. New federal funding for primary care teams comes on top of the announcement, and Ford said he hopes it will help reduce wait times in emergency rooms, which have seen an increase in non-emergency patients.

“I'm going to be assigned to these emergency units,” Ford said.

Dr. Nadia Alam, a family physician, anesthesiologist and past president of the Ontario Medical Association (OMA), said the new money could help “stabilize” the health care system if it's spent with the future in mind.

“Our health care system is in dire straits and right now it feels like we're moving furniture around while the house is on fire,” he told CBC radio. Subway morning on Friday.

“When the province spends money wisely and carefully and puts it in not just to put out fires, but to think long-term, we can do a lot to save a very broken health care system,” Alam added.

The bilateral agreement also aims to expand access to mental health services in the province.

“We know that people are waiting too long to get the mental health care they need,” Trudeau said at a morning news conference in King City, adding that wait times are particularly prohibitive in rural areas and for young people. Ontario has agreed to open five new Youth Wellness Hubs in addition to the 22 already open since 2022.

OMA welcomes funding, says more is needed

The deal also includes federal funding to support the province's plan to automatically grant health professionals licensed elsewhere in Canada the right to practice in Ontario, as well as to make it easier for internationally trained health workers to work in the province.

“This includes removing barriers to foreigner credential recognition, streamlining licensing processes, and increasing access to the program for highly educated and qualified medical professionals,” the statement said.

The OMA, which represents the province's doctors, said in a statement it welcomed the increased funding but warned that more money would be needed to “address significant structural issues” in the health care system.

“While we address the most pressing issues, knowing that we have an aging and medically complex patient population, we must have a long-term, sustainable funding formula to address the underlying issues in the system and build for the future,” OMA President Dr. Andrew Park said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the opposition New Democrats questioned why it took a year for the deal to be finalized and demanded more transparency on how the province spends the money.

“Ontarians have waited more than a year for the Ford government to sign an agreement on federal funding for our health care system. Many people in Ontario spent that time waiting for overcrowded ambulances, waiting for overbooked ambulances and waiting to see their families. doctors,” said MPP France Jelinas, the NDP's health care critic.

“It is time to sign this agreement,” he added.

The Ontario Nurses Association has questioned statistics presented by the premier and health minister at a press conference, including the number of new nurses in the province.

“If we have so many new nurses, why do hundreds of emergency departments in Ontario continue to close due to nursing shortages?” president Erin Aris said in a statement.

A report by Ontario's auditor general late last year found that 203 emergency departments across the province were temporarily closed between July 2022 and June 2023.

Amid this strain on the system, one in five patients who came to the ER were only there because they didn't have a family doctor and didn't need emergency care, the report said.