Ontario hits halfway mark in clearing Health Care Connect waitlist

A group of internationally-trained family doctors are now treating patients in Ontario after they were licensed through a pilot program to expedite the process to recognized their foreign credentials. A doctor wears a lab coat and stethoscope in an exam room at a health clinic in Calgary, Friday, July 14, 2023.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh (Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press)

Ontario has hit the halfway mark in clearing the Health Care Connect (HCC) waitlist for primary care.

The Ministry of Health says it has managed to connect some 118,000 people with a family doctor or primary care team as of this week, representing 50 per cent of those in line on Jan 1., 2025.

The Ford government aims to clear the 235,000-person HCC waitlist entirely by spring 2026 and set all Ontarians up with a doctor, nurse practitioner or primary care team by 2029. The government has committed $2.1 billion to make those links through the Primary Care Action Plan.

“By reducing the Health Care Connect waitlist, our government is delivering on our promise to connect everyone in Ontario to primary care,” said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, in a news release shared with CTV News.

“This milestone builds on our government’s record investments to ensure families have access to high-quality care closer to home, while protecting our health-care system for years to come.”

The HCC waitlist does not capture every Ontarian without a family doctor.

In the summer of 2024, the Ontario College of Family Physicians put that figure at 2.5 million and cautioned it could balloon to 4.4 million, or one in four people by 2026.

The Ontario Medical Association worries a new policy to give Ontarians first dibs on residency positions could deter internationally-trained physicians and mean fewer doctors in the province.

There are multiple rounds in which would-be doctors get matched with residency spots and the province will now be saving first-round international graduate spots for people who attended high school in Ontario for at least two years.

The move follows a policy announced last year by Premier Doug Ford that the province’s medical school seats would be mostly reserved for Ontario residents.

With files from The Canadian Press