No end in sight: Optometrists and government locked in stalemate
It’s been three weeks since Ontario eye doctors withdrew provincially insured eye services after a breakdown in talks with the Ford government over reimbursement of costs.
“I think government, opening their eyes and looking at the big picture,” says Donna Carter, who’s been retired for a year and has since picked up one of her old passions-reading.
“It’s making me very anxious because I’m thinking I am having some difficulty.”
The 68-year-old had an eye exam scheduled for Sept. 16, but was cancelled due to job action by Ontario eye doctors.
“I happen to be pre-diabetic, so it’s important to have my eyes checked annually,” says Carter.
The base of the job action is that doctors are only reimbursed by the government about $45 for each patient, but the cost of the appointment is closer to $80.
The provinces health plan covers annual eye exams for residents 19 and under, 65 and older or people with specific health conditions.
“A $5 increase in 32 years doesn’t make sense,” says Windsor eye doctor, John Mastronardi.
He says the province did offer a $39 million retroactive payment and also offered to increase the reimbursement closer to $50.
“The next lowest publicly funded province for eye care is Manitoba and we would need a 70 per cent increase just to get to the second lowest,” Mastronardi tells CTV News.
Spokesperson for the Minister of Health, Alexandra Hilkene says:
“It is not reasonable or responsible for the government to agree to any other increase without first engaging in a process of due diligence to validate the facts.
As part of our offer we have proposed to immediately set up a joint working group. This includes a thorough understanding of the costs optometrists incur in delivering their services to Ontarians.”
Mastronardi says The Ontario Association of Optometrists have sent an open letter to MPP’s voicing their concerns.
“Our patients have been very understanding, the math is simple,” he says. “Ontarian’s get it.”
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
For the first time in report's history, Canada's air quality worse than U.S.
Thanks to wildfires, air quality in Canada is now worse than in the U.S., according to the 6th Annual World Air Quality Report.
A newspaper says video of Prince William and Kate should halt royal rumour mill. That's a tall order
Prince William and his wife Catherine have been filmed at a farm shop near their Windsor home, The Sun newspaper reported -- the first footage of Kate since she had abdominal surgery for an unspecified condition two months ago.
'You ask for your money, they disappear': Ontario man loses $17K to AI crypto scam
A Toronto man is spreading the word of a cryptocurrency scam that lures victims using AI-generated news sites after he lost $17,000 in investments.
DEVELOPING Canada's annual inflation rate ticked down to 2.8 per cent in February, defying expectations
Statistics Canada says the annual inflation rate edged down to 2.8 per cent in February.
Hertz CEO out following electric car 'horror show'
The company, which announced in January it was selling 20,000 of the electric vehicles in its fleet, or about a third of the EVs it owned, is now replacing the CEO who helped build up that fleet, giving it the company’s fifth boss in just four years.
High thoughts: The habits of Canadian cannabis users are revealed in a new StatCan report
Statistics Canada has conducted a series of surveys to measure the impacts of legalized cannabis since the Cannabis Act took effect in 2018. The latest one, the 2023 National Cannabis Survey, sheds light on users' preferences and habits last year.
Demand soars for solar eclipse glasses in Canada. Are they worth buying?
The demand for total solar eclipse glasses used to safely view the rare celestial event has been ramping up as sellers, along with astronomy and eye-care experts in Canada, warn that viewing the eclipse with the naked eye is dangerous.
Trump says Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and their religion
Former U.S. president Donald Trump on Monday charged that Jews who vote for Democrats 'hate Israel' and hate 'their religion,' igniting a firestorm of criticism from the White House and Jewish leaders.
Toronto family doctor who called patient's body 'perfect' suspended for 3 months: tribunal
A family doctor in Toronto has been suspended for three months after a disciplinary tribunal found that he failed to follow proper protocols while examining a patient's breasts and made inappropriate comments about her body.