‘We are making record investments to ensure that every patient in Ontario is connected to primary care by the end of 2029,’ said MPP Chris Scott<\/p>\n
Nearly 2,000\u00a0Sault Ste. Marie residents will soon have access to primary care\u00a0thanks to new funding from the province.<\/p>\n
MPP Chris Scott announced a $539,000 funding package this morning, which will help bring 1,925 new patients aboard at the Superior Family Health Team.<\/p>\n
The funding will go towards two new nurse practitioners, a patient navigator, and additional staff to help put a dent in the thousands of Sault Ste. Marie residents living without a primary care provider.<\/p>\n
As part of the province\u2019s $2.1 billion Primary Care Action Plan, today\u2019s announcement came after one of three funding applications in Sault Ste. Marie were successful \u2013 with further intakes, and more funding, possible in the coming weeks and months.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are making record investments to ensure that every patient in Ontario is connected to primary care by the end of 2029,\u201d Scott said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really excited to announce Superior Family Health was successful in getting approved for $539,000 for this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
This round of funding targeted communities with the highest number of unattached patients \u2013 with Sault Ste. Marie eligible to put three proposals in.<\/p>\n
The three proposals cover the city\u2019s three different postal codes, with today\u2019s funding going to help residents in the P6C postal codes \u2013 as well as any overflow from P6A.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople in one particular area would be assigned to us through Healthcare Connect, and the other two proposals would be for different postal codes trying to cover across the entire city to make sure no area is left out,\u201d said Alan McLean, physician lead at Superior Health.<\/p>\n
Scott said he hopes today\u2019s announcement is just \u201cthe beginning of the good news\u201d for unattached patients in the Sault.<\/p>\n
With some people waiting on Health Care connect for upwards of a decade, McLean said now is the time to get signed up.<\/p>\n
\u201cUntil this announcement, I was basically telling people don’t even bother signing up, because nothing happens,\u201d McLean said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBut in the last few months, everyone I find without a family doctor, I say get on Healthcare Connect because that’s your way to get primary care.\u201d<\/p>\n
McLean expects the Health Team will be able to onboard about half of the new patients by year\u2019s end, after hiring the newly funded staff complement in the coming months.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a much needed investment to get people into primary care so they’re less sick when they go to hospital, less sick when they go to emerge, and hopefully don’t even have to go to the emergency department at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"‘We are making record investments to ensure that every patient in Ontario is connected to primary care by…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[49,48,84,392],"class_list":["post-69728","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\/69728","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=69728"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69728\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69728"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69728"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69728"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}