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<\/p>\n(March 13, 2023)<\/p>\n
By: Staff Monday, KenoraOnline<\/p>\n
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Concerns are being raised about a section of Bill 60 that proposes to give private clinics expanded powers.<\/p>\n
The opposition says the section also allows anyone not properly trained to become a health care worker.<\/p>\n
NDP critic Frances Gelinas shutters at what it means for patients.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it means that a physician working in a for-profit surgical suite could, very well, hire his mother-in-law hairdresser, bring her into his office and call her a nurse. That hairdresser that he will call the nurse could start your IV, could put a catheter in, could give you narcotics, could do a whole bunch of restricted acts under the license of the physician, be called a nurse when this person is not a nurse, has never gone to a nursing school, has never written a nursing exam, and has never belonged to the College of Nurses,\u201d says Gelinas.<\/p>\n
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Executive Director Natalie Mehra calls it shocking deregulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat they\u2019ve done is deregulate all of those professions and said that they\u2019ll leave it to regulations to prescribe, who could call themselves a surgeon, who can call themselves a physician, who can call themselves an x-ray technologist, who can provide x-rays and other radiating procedures, who can call themselves a laboratory technologist,\u201d says Mehra.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all just staggered by this. Why would you sneak into a bill the full deregulation of a very significant range of health professionals, including doctors and surgeons, in the middle of a bill that privatizes core public hospital services?\u201d<\/p>\n
The province suggests the changes are necessary to allow medical professionals trained elsewhere in Canada to work in Ontario.<\/p>\n
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Gelinas says the wording of the proposed bill brings into question the trust patients will have in the health care services they receive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat if the nurse that you think is a nurse who\u2019s about to start an IV is not a nurse? What if the nurse, who\u2019s about to tell you to take medications that you don\u2019t know, dispenses this medication to you is not a nurse? What if he\u2019s not a doctor? The minute you bring doubts into the healthcare system, you affect the healthcare system.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill is now before the Standing Committee on Social Policy.<\/p>\n
It plans to hold a series of public hearings beginning March 20.<\/p>\n