PETERBOROUGH, Ont. - Doctor shortages and clogged emergency rooms remain rampant across Ontario four years after the Liberal government promised a revolution in health-care delivery, Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory said Thursday.
At several campaign stops, Tory lambasted Premier Dalton McGuinty for doing little to address the kind of problems that forced a 92-year-old woman to place a newspaper ad in hopes of finding a family doctor, or left patients lying in stretchers for hours on end in hospital corridors.
Worse, Tory said, is that McGuinty has attempted to hide the extent of the problem.
"Not only has Dalton McGuinty done virtually nothing for all of these families without doctors over his four years in power, he now has the gall to take credit for fixing the problem,'' Tory said at a morning event outside Kingston General Hospital.
"In the midst of an election campaign, Dalton McGuinty is trying to distort the facts -- he tried to claim the claim that Ontario's doctor shortage has improved on his watch.''
McGuinty maintains that half a million more people in Ontario now have family doctors compared to when he was elected in 2003.
The Liberals also say the family health teams they have put in place have helped tens of thousands of people find primary care, and they have slashed wait times for various procedures such as cancer and cataract surgery.
McGuinty's claims found some support from Kingston doctor Kathryn Lockington, who questioned Tory's figures claiming 20,000 people in the city have no family physician.
"We do know a lot of people are without a doctor,'' said Lockington, whose own health team has taken on 4,200 patients over the last two years.
"But (McGuinty's approach) is making a difference.''
However, in Peterborough, emergency room doctor Dan Houpt stopped Tory to lament the dismal state of affairs at his hospital, where patients routinely wait for eight hours to be seen.
Pointing to a new hospital under construction across from the Peterborough Regional Health Centre, Houpt said little will change with the move because the government has starved the facility for funds.
"(Patients) will just be lying in bigger hallways,'' he said.
Tory said he would invest up to $400 million a year to, among other things, defer debt repayments for medical students if they stay in Ontario. He also promised to offer alternatives to full retirement so older doctors can keep practising part-time.
He also said he would mount what he called a "full-court press'' to try to lure back some of the 9,000 Canadian-trained doctors now practising in the United States.
During a campaign stop in Cobourg, Tory introduced Etta Young, who just turned 92. When her doctor left the community, Young was unable to find a replacement, and she even placed an ad in the vain hope of finding one.
Young credited Tory with good intentions, but was skeptical of his pledge to fix the problems.
"I can't see how one person can make the difference,'' Young said.
"I know he will try. But I can't see it, I really can't. Because I heard a lot of stories around town. It's bad.''
