Family health teams urge Ontario to raise pay for nurses, health-care workers to retain them
listen to this article
estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article has been generated by AI-based technology. There may be incorrect pronunciations. We are working with our partners to continually review and improve results.
Ontario is working toward connecting everyone in the province to a primary care provider, but family health teams are warning that as the government sets its sights on that laudable goal, the foundation of primary care is crumbling.
Family health teams include not only doctors, but also many other health professionals who provide comprehensive care, such as nurses, social workers, and dietitians. Family health teams say government funding for those professionals has not kept pace with inflation or the salaries earned by similar professionals in other health care settings.
The Association of Family Health Teams of Ontario says nurse practitioners can earn an additional $20,000 or more per year working in a hospital, and physician assistants can earn an additional $30,000.
“We’re getting funding to bring in more people and engage more Ontarians, but if you don’t really stabilize the workforce you have and stabilize the capital space you have, you’re very limited in terms of being able to maintain engagement,” association CEO Jess Rogers said in an interview.
“So we can build up our attachment numbers this year, let’s say, or by 2029, but the concern is that we want to make sure that Ontarians have access to care, not just that they’re attached.”
$430 million asked to reduce structural pay gap
The association says family health teams received a 2.7 percent increase in compensation last year, but after several years of stagnation it doesn’t come close to the level needed to properly recruit and retain professionals.
Various family health teams and their union made presentations to a legislative pre-budget committee, seeking $430 million over five years to close the structural pay gap, and releasing $115 million in already committed workforce funding.
A spokesperson for Health Minister Sylvia Jones said the province is investing heavily in family health teams, including more than $600 million this year.
“Ontario is the first Canadian jurisdiction to pass legislation that establishes a framework for a publicly funded primary care system, and through our $2.1 billion Primary Care Action Plan, we are both investing more in family health teams across the province and connecting everyone to a primary care provider by 2029,” wrote Emma Popovic.
A new report shows Ontario hospitals spent $9.2 billion on private, for-profit nursing and staffing agencies over the past decade, a figure that is expected to double between 2013 and 2023. Critics of private agencies urged Ontario to phase them out, calling them a ‘band-aid on a sore wound’.
Meghan Peters, executive director of a family health team in Sudbury, said some workers take second jobs to make ends meet, although some can earn thousands of dollars more per year in different areas of the health field.
“The passion for primary care is no longer enough to justify staying,” he told the pre-budget committee.
“And when these skilled professionals leave, the foundation of primary care weakens. Our ability to provide essential services, programs, timely access and comprehensive care is compromised. Those who suffer most are our patients. As our health care professionals leave, our patients face longer wait times, reduced services, program cancellations and attrition.”
Recruitment and retention in various areas of the health sector is a particular challenge for Northern and rural Ontario, and family health teams say they are no exception.
Shannon Kristjanson, executive director of Greenstone Family Health Team, told the committee they are funded for four nurse practitioners, but only one position is filled.
“(At the hospital), which is in the same parking lot where we are — you can make about $40 more an hour as a nurse practitioner,” Kristjansson said.
“So it’s really difficult to recruit or retain almost all positions in health care in the North because of the pay gap, but especially nurse practitioners.”
