Rural, remote, and northern (RRN) communities are disproportionately impacted by the current primary care crisis occurring in Ontario. This crisis has resulted in many primary care and overall health service issues arising in these regions, such as a growing shortage of primary care providers, waves of emergency department closures, and increasing challenges for health service providers to effectively deliver and coordinate health services in RRN regions. Consequently, Ontarians living in RRN communities are rapidly and drastically losing access to primary care compared to Ontarians living in urban communities.
The growing inaccessibility of primary care for RRN residents is alarming as Ontarians living in RRN communities experience poorer health outcomes and more complex health issues than Ontarians living in urban communities. The socio-economic profile of RRN communities creates, influences, and intensifies barriers to accessing primary care that are unique to RRN residents. These barriers have significantly eroded the accessibility of primary care in many RRN communities, causing residents to lose access to primary care close to home and forcing them to seek care in other, often inappropriate, settings, such as the emergency department.
Proven Practices to Improve Access to Primary Care in Ontario’s Rural, Remote, and Northern Communities is a booklet that aims to initiate and advance the development and implementation of policy initiatives and solutions to enable health system transformation that addresses the worsening primary care access challenges impacting RRN communities throughout Ontario.
This booklet spotlights the innovative, creative, and bold work of 50+ Alliance members located in and serving RRN communities throughout the province. These Alliance members endeavour to increase and improve access to comprehensive primary health care for Ontarians living in these communities despite the difficult socio-economic challenges exacerbating the primary care access issues in RRN regions.
Furthermore, this booklet demonstrates how RRN-serving Alliance members improve primary health care access in cost-effective, comprehensive, evidence-based, and community-centred ways that can support the government in achieving its core goal described in Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care: connecting all Ontarians to the care they need when they need it, no matter where they live in the province.
Lastly, this booklet outlines calls to action to support the Government of Ontario, along with the Ministry of Health and Ontario Health, in its efforts to rebuild and strengthen primary care access in RRN regions. These initial calls to action are the first steps to increase and improve access to primary health care for Ontarians living in RRN communities.
The Alliance and its members are well-positioned and eager to collaborate with and support the Government of Ontario to begin working on improving and increasing primary care access in these regions. We believe that our collective efforts can reinvigorate our health system and make it future-proof, exemplary and robust while enabling it to be agile and responsive to the needs of all Ontarians, their families, and communities, especially those living in RRN regions.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
Samuel Garcia-Feliz
Policy and Advocacy Lead
Alliance for Healthier Communities samuel.garciafeliz@allianceon.org