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Healthcare

Healthcare in Ontario is universally available to all residents at no cost to the individual. The Provincial Government's healthcare plan (OHIP) covers the full cost of all necessary diagnostic and treatment medical services for all citizens, and most permanent residents in Ontario. This coverage includes physician visits, examinations and consultations, diagnostic testing, medical care and surgical services, emergency dental care, and Telehealth Ontario, a service that offers patients 24-hour confidential telephone access to a Registered Nurse for consultation.

The Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care is responsible for regulating and administering healthcare to all Ontarians, resulting in very low administration costs and an absence of sales and marketing costs found in private, for-profit systems.

The government of Ontario is committed to continue the delivery of high quality health care. Ontario's publicly funded health care system helps make the province attractive for businesses to invest and create jobs. The government's plan is improving access, shortening wait times, promoting wellness, preventing illness and modernizing health infrastructure.

Investments in the health care sector have increased from Cdn$29.4 billion in 2003-04 to a planned Cdn$42.4 billion in 2009-10 and Cdn$44.7 billion in 2010-11.

Windsor-Essex Region Healthcare Facts

• Our local healthcare facilities support a number of specialists and sub-specialists in every medical and surgical discipline - very few patients are referred outside of the local community for care
• Two city and one county hospitals provide over 1,000 acute care beds
• Along with the Regional Cancer Centre, these three hospitals have undergone over $200 million in capital improvements in recent years and continue to be updated with state of the art diagnostics, emergency care, critical care facilities and operating rooms
• Twenty long-term care facilities currently service the area - construction will soon start on 300 additional long-term care beds which have been announced for the region
• The Windsor-Essex Region is one of a very few communities in Ontario with family physicians who are accepting new patients - a focused recruitment initiative has brought more than 60 family physicians to the area in the last five years and this initiative continues to bring new practitioners at a rate significantly higher than our physician attrition
• Four Ministry of Health-funded "Family Health Teams" offer comprehensive primary care to thousands of city and county residents - these teams provide local patients with access to family physicians, advanced-care nurses, dieticians, social workers and other allied health professionals
• The Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry has expanded its undergraduate medical program to the University of Windsor. As of September 2008, the complete undergraduate medical program offered entry to 24 first-year students. The program will expand by an additional 14 first-year student spaces in the fall of 2009.