Ontario to make primary care and prevention a top priority.

TORONTO -- Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term Care George Smitherman outlined the government's strategies for healthcare in the province.

The Association of Ontario Health Centres applauded Smitherman's announcement, saying he "made primary health care and prevention in Ontario Communities a top priority." The association, representing 55 Community Health Centres and 10 Aboriginal Health Access Centres welcomed the Ontario government's plans to change health care in the province by investing more money into primary care and to use federal monies stemming from the provincial, territorial and federal governments' Health Accord for home care, family health issues, catastrophic drug coverage and community.

"His emphasis on reforming primary care through family health teams of heath care professionals including family doctors, working in a community context, is a sea of change from the last eight years where these services were frozen and ignored," she said.

Smitherman also announced $385 million in new monies for Ontario's hospitals to eliminate shortfalls in operating funds for 2003/04 along with "new rigorous accountability requirements for hospitals" by developing performance agreements, which hospitals will be required to sign. For the first time in Ontario, hospitals' funding is to be tied to patient care results, such as reducing wait times for cardiac care, cancer care and hip and knee replacements.

Of the $385 million, $320 million will go directly to offset operating shortfalls while $50 million is targeted to increasing full-time nursing positions and to improve safety and working conditions for nurses. If hospitals failed to reach their targets for nurses, they could lose their funding, which would then be directed to hospitals that had reached their goals.