The Ford government has announced that 57 new privately operated surgical and diagnostic centres will be brought online and integrated into the public health system as it tries to reduce wait times.

On Friday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford unveiled the first new privately operated facility to be given an operating licence — a new building in Richmond Hill, Ont., which will be run as a non-profit.

As part of the creation of 57 new privately run facilities — referred to by the government as community surgical and diagnostic centres — Ontario will chip in a total $155 million over two years.

“The 57 new centres we are rolling out across Ontario will make a huge difference for people in the province, helping them get the care they need, when they need it,” Ford said in a statement.

“It’s all part of our plan to protect and improve our health-care services, all while ensuring people always receive the care they need with their OHIP card.”

Thirty-five of the centres have been licensed to offer MRI and CT scans, while another 22 will deal with GI endoscopy procedures.

Ontario NDP MPP France Gélinas said the announcement was a step in the wrong direction.
“That is public money going into private hands instead of our local hospitals, where help is desperately needed,”

“This model of private delivery with public dollars is alarming and unfair. Study after study shows that private clinics benefit the wealthiest, while leaving the rest of us behind.

That is public money going into private hands instead of our local hospitals, where help is desperately needed. All of this has been made possible through Bill 60.

“This model of private delivery with public dollars is alarming and unfair. Study after study shows that private clinics benefit the wealthiest, while leaving the rest of us behind.

Ford made Friday’s announcement at the Schroeder Ambulatory Centre in Richmond Hill, which received the first such licence to operate a new centre. It will get $14 million from the province and provide MRIs, CT scans and endoscopy procedures to 115,000 patients over two years.

The Walter and Maria Schroeder Foundation committed $300 million for the new centre.

Health Minister Sylvia Jones said no special favours were given to the new ambulatory centre, which was built without assurance it would be granted a licence if it applied.

The new centres will help alleviate the strain on public hospitals, the provincial government said. The premier said that “hospitals are at full capacity, but this will relieve them.”

Announcing the licences marks a major checkpoint on a plan the government announced in 2023 to expand the role of privately delivered, publicly funded operators in the health-care system.

The plan — titled Your Health — was announced at the beginning of 2023, with legislation to support it passed during the spring. In the year that has followed, the government has been working through details of how it will manage oversight of new private clinics.

— with files from The Canadian Press