Ford government tabs ex-federal Liberal health minister to chair primary care team

Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s government is appointing former federal Liberal health minister Jane Philpott to a new role overseeing attempts to connect every Ontarian to primary care within the next five years.

The Ontario Medical Association says there are more than 2.5 million Ontarians without a family doctor.

Philpott, dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s University and director of its School of Medicine, says in a statement that she wants to see 100 per cent of Ontarians attached to a family doctor or nurse practitioner working in a publicly funded team.

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Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones says there is no one she trusts more than Philpott to achieve that goal.

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Philpott’s new role as chair of a new primary care action team in the Ministry of Health starts Dec. 1 and the government says she will draw on an interprofessional model of primary care that she designed with colleagues in the Frontenac, Lennox and Addington Ontario Health Team.

The government says the plan will include ensuring better service on weekends and after-hours, reducing administrative burden on family doctors and other primary care professionals and improving connections to specialists and digital tools.