Restore Health Care to an Acceptable Level, Minister Jones — A Doctor's Letter
Four weeks into the Family Health Team strike, a doctor who referred patients to its services daily takes his case to Queen's Park.
LETTER TO THE EDITOR
To the editor: The following letter was emailed to the Honourable Sylvia Jones, Ontario’s Deputy Premier and Minister of Health, on June 13, 2026, with hard copy to follow. It was copied to JP Harnick, OPSEU; Marit Stiles, Leader NDP; and John Fraser, Interim Leader Liberal Party.
Honourable Minister,
I am writing this letter to you and am sending a separate copy of it to JP Hornick, leader of the OPSEU.
I am writing to express my sincere concerns about health care in this community. Members of the Owen Sound Family Health Team are now entering the fourth week of their strike against the Ministry of Health.
This community is now having to experience the second strike affecting the Owen Sound Family Health Centre in recent years. The first was in 2018 and involved nurses, support staff and custodians striking against the 22 primary care doctors.
When patients attempted to visit the facility during the strike there were confrontations between strikers and community members. The strike lasted over three months, and it has had ongoing effects on the lives of many people, including doctors, nurses, support workers and members of the community in general.
There were huge changes in the staff that continued working after the strike. Unfortunately it seems the Ministry of Health, which is responsible for funding the doctors, who have to pay for all of the support staff that assist them from their own income, and OPSEU have had no visible apparent ongoing concern about how our part of the health care system has been functioning since that strike ended.
Now we are faced with a strike by members of the Owen Sound Family Health Team against the Ministry of Health. Members of this Team include nurses, social workers, dieticians, an occupational therapist, and a pharmacist.
They provide services that include palliative care services and navigation, enhanced support for frail elderly, memory care including specialized clinics and memory testing, smoking cessation, cancer screening, diabetic foot care, mental health counselling which is the only no-fee individualized counselling services in Owen Sound, nutrition support for chronic diseases and eating disorders, pain management support, medication reviews after patients are discharged from hospital, fall prevention assessments and education, enhanced supports for medially complex and marginalized patients and pre-natal and newborn care for patients not attached with a primary care provider.
The physicians of the Owen Sound Medical Associates and the Georgian Bay Practice Associates normally work very closely with members of the FHT. I used to refer patients to the above mentioned programs daily and I frequently consulted with the pharmacist for clarity on pharmaceutical issues.
The members of the FHT who are striking have been picketing daily since May 25th. They have marched outside of the office of Mr Paul Vickers MPP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, outside of the Owen Sound City Hall, and on one of the bridges in Owen Sound that carries a great deal of vehicular traffic. They have apparently attempted to contact Mr Vickers through his office in order to meet with him to discuss their situation, but they have been told consistently by his staff that he is unavailable.
I want to express my personal and professional gratitude to the members of the FHT who I have worked with and who unfortunately are currently on strike. The have not been paid now for 3 weeks and in talking to several of the individuals, they are finding it difficult to consider resuming to work with the FHT when similar positions in the hospital for example, pay much better in salaries and benefits. Along with this, some FHT members have indicated that they are unclear about what the union’s plan or intentions are.
I hope that a resolution to their strike and contract issues will come soon. Many people are being negatively affected by this and it would help to restore health care in this community to an acceptable level and perhaps stimulate a goal to working toward greater health care in an area of Ontario that has the largest proportion of aging citizens.
Bruce Stanners MD, FCFP, Dip Sport Med
Letters to the Editor do not necessarily reflect the opinions or beliefs of The Owen Sound Current and its editor or publisher.
Related:
