Ontario’s private-clinic plan doesn’t add up, prospective applicants warn

Posted: August 6, 2025

(August 6, 2025) By: Jeff Gray, The Globe and Mail (behind a paywall)

The Ontario government, poised to allow private clinics to do publicly funded hip- and knee-replacement surgeries, is facing behind-the-scenes criticism from some of the people who hope to build the new facilities.

The long-delayed move is part of the Progressive Conservative government’s push to boost the involvement of the private sector in the public health care system, in an effort to move more procedures out of hospitals and reduce waiting times.

But in interviews with The Globe and Mail, sources with two prospective private-sector applicants for licences to open new clinics say the terms unveiled in July are inadequate. They say the per-procedure payments that their clinics would receive will not provide a return for the financial backers that is required to build expensive new clinics from scratch.

…….

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, an anti-private-care group backed by health-worker unions, dismissed the complaints about the cost structure from the prospective private clinics. She accused them of merely angling for more profits before they even open.

“And so the lobbying commences,” Ms. Mehra said in an interview.

Data her group released in 2023 showed that many public hospitals across the province had underused operating rooms, owing to a lack of funding for staff. More procedures could be done in these existing, already-paid-for ORs, she argues.

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