{"id":658371,"date":"2026-05-09T15:04:58","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T15:04:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658371\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T15:04:58","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T15:04:58","slug":"ontario-announces-15m-to-connect-london-area-residents-to-primary-health-care","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/658371\/","title":{"rendered":"Ontario announces $15M to connect London-area residents to primary health care"},"content":{"rendered":"

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With the clock ticking on its goal of connecting every Ontarian to a doctor or primary care provider by 2029, the Ford government on Friday said it would put forward another $15 million to help meet its pledge in the London area.<\/p>\n

The new funding, which the province says will help connect just over 33,000 people to a primary health-care provider, supports Ontario health teams and primary care networks in Elgin, Middlesex and London.<\/p>\n

It comes in addition to the $5.3 million the government earmarked for the region in August and the $5.23 million it announced for Oxford County earlier this week<\/a>, both part of its larger Primary Care Action Plan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“This is the preventative maintenance,” said Rob Flack, the MPP for Elgin\u2014Middlesex\u2014London, who announced the funding on Friday during an event at the former CASO train station in St. Thomas.<\/p>\n

“If we get this right, and we will, and we get everyone connected to the doctor, it’s going to take off an enormous amount of pressure with our hospitals and let them do what they do best, which shouldn’t be primary care. That’s what our doctors, our nurse practitioners, and people like the Thames Valley (Family) Health Team do and do so well.”<\/p>\n

\"AMike McMahon, CEO of Thames Valley Family Health Team; Amber Alpaugh-Bishop, executive director of Middlesex London Ontario Health Team; Deanna Huhggett, executive director of Elgin Ontario Health Team; and Rob Flack, MPP for Elgin\u2014Middlesex\u2014London photographed at Friday’s announcement in St. Thomas, Ont. (Thames Valley Family Health Team)<\/p>\n

According to the Thames Valley Family Health Team, Middlesex County and London will receive nearly $11 million of the funding, and Elgin County will receive $4.05 million. TVFHT is leading the initiative, a collaboration with the Middlesex-London Ontario Health Team and Elgin Ontario Health Team.<\/p>\n

“Since the pandemic, our region … has grown by over 40,000 people, and it’s going to continue to grow because of the economic development and investments that have been made,” Flack said, referencing PowerCo, Vianode, Dr. Oetker, and others.<\/p>\n

“We announced $285 million earlier this week<\/a> to build new schools in our region, and healthcare is primary to everyone’s success and to everyone’s health.” <\/p>\n

Mike McMahon, CEO of TVFHT, was unavailable for an interview on Friday. In a statement through Flack’s office, McMahon said the funding allows the team to “take a coordinated step forward in improving how people access and receive health care in their community.”<\/p>\n

“[i]n service to our community, and together with our partners, we will build and grow local health-care teams so more people can connect to primary health care earlier and get the support they need to live healthier lives,” his statement read.<\/p>\n

The province has invested $3.4 billion in its Primary Care Action Plan and says it achieved its first goal to connect more than 300,000 people with a health-care provider by March.<\/p>\n

As of January, nearly two million people in Ontario had no primary health-care provider.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658372,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-658371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-healthcare"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658371"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658371\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}