Amongst all the vital issues of provincial significance that get discussed at this time of year, there is no doubt that health care remains as the number one priority for people in Ontario.

Unfortunately, while health sector spending accounts for about 46 cents of every tax dollar allocated, the size and scope of our health system obscures the most important person: the patient.

All too often, care in Ontario is structured around forms, processes, long lines, and bureaucracy, when it should be built from the patient out.

Over the past eight years, money that should have gone to nurses, emergency rooms, and frontline patient care was instead diverted to salaries and expenses for fancy health care consultants. The lessons learned from the billion dollar e-health boondoggle should not be forgotten.

As Ontario’s Opposition we have watched too long as we pay more and get less in health care services. It’s time for patient-centred reforms that make the patient – not bureaucracies, not administrators – the focus of our health care system.

Tim Hudak has announced plans to grow our investments in health, while instilling the patient centred focus we deserve.

Specifically, we will increase annual investments in health-care by $6.1 billion by the end our first term. At the same time we will introduce a rigorous system of patient satisfaction and health outcome measures including the establishment of wait time guarantees for emergency room visits.

To accomplish our goals we will need to take aim at eliminating fraud and waste in health care and reducing administration.

The Ontario PC plan will target the costly health bureaucracies that take money from direct patient care. We will put a stop to scandals like eHealth and limit health care dollars towards ever-expanding salaries for administrators.

For example, the LHINs are unelected, unaccountable, faceless bureaucracies that the Dalton McGuinty Liberals hide behind whenever there are beds to close, emergency rooms to shut, or nurses to lay off. To date, $300 million health care dollars have been diverted from frontline care to pay for salaries and administration. We will close the LHINs and redirect those dollars to patients.

We continue to advocate bringing more doctors to communities that need them. We will do this by encouraging doctors, nurses, nurse practitioners and physician assistants to work collaboratively. We will increase residency placements for medical students from Ontario who have training outside Canada and want to return home to practice. Locally, the excitement surrounding plans for a new Port Dover Health Centre – ideally building on the success of the Delhi Community Health Centre – will go a long way to attracting and retaining physicians and other health professionals.

Our plan also includes improvements in health care for Ontario seniors with 40,000 long-term care beds – 5,000 new and 35,000 upgraded. And we will give homecare users more dignity, more flexibility and more say in determining where they acquire these important services.

For all we pay in taxes, we should receive the highest quality services in the country. In many cases, it’s not about more money but rather about rethinking and revitalizing the way our services work. We will work to ensure we receive the world class health care services we deserve.