ST. CATHARINES, Ont. - Tackling chronic care “run-around” could help rein in Ontario’s spending on long-term illnesses, Ontario PC Leader Tim Hudak said Wednesday in an exclusive peek at the Tories’ health plans.
At an editorial board meeting with the St. Catharines Standard, Hudak said care for chronic ailments, such as Parkinson’s disease, is the key challenge in Ontario medicine. He said the province is spending $9 billion on 170,000 chronic-care patients, but treating them piecemeal.
“There are often patients in our systems who have three or more diseases at once,” he said. “The problem is, our system treats that one individual with three diseases as three separate people.”
As a result, patients get “the run-around” and go to many different providers for care for disparate ailments.
Hudak said the amount spent on those first 170,000 chronic-care patients drives home the importance of treating long-term disease.
