May Ontario’s taxpayers not be ‘a penny wise and a pound foolish.’

Opinion letter by Joseph Amatruda

January 6 2026

During 2026 and 2027 Ontario Health is phasing in hip and knee replacement surgeries at four designated Ontario private clinics hoping to improve on patient wait times needing these procedures.

In the era of data driven change one might hope that our current Ontario Government would have taken into consideration the following. England’s National Health Service are a number of years ahead of Ontario in having opened the door to cataract, knee, and hip surgeries at private clinics/hospitals. In contrast, Scotland’s Health Service chose a different path choosing to invest in their public hospitals. Current data shows that Scotland’s Hospital patient wait times and patient medical outcomes are better than those in England. Data also indicated that in England there was a reduction in training opportunities for medical resident specialists. This was due to the unavailability of senior medical specialists at public hospitals as they were working in private hospitals/clinics. In England, a percentage of patients at a private surgical hospital would have complications post surgery after returning home. Those individuals experiencing complications went to a public hospital to be triaged then admitted ahead of those individuals that had been waiting in the public hospital queue for similar medical procedures.

In another context in British Columbia a private medical clinic (Cambie Surgeries Corp.) that launched an unsuccessful constitutional challenge of Canada's public health-care system must pay the B.C. government's legal costs. The B.C. government claimed the private clinic was making "tens of millions" in profit in violation of B.C.’s public health-care protection law.

Considering the evidence, I question how the opening of private surgical clinics in Ontario will improve Ontario Health’s service delivery and patient medical outcomes.