The Grey Bruce Ontario Health Team says it’s reached about 40 per cent of its goal to attach patients to doctors.
Over the past year and a half, their aim has been to work to connect 23,562 people to a doctor or nurse practitioner in the region by 2029.
Grey Bruce Ontario Health Team Executive Director Lindsay Johnston told Grey County councillors Thursday, “We actually have now attached over 9,000 local residents to primary care, so a physician or nurse practitioner and we are now 40 per cent of the way there to our larger goal of attaching over 23 and a half thousand Grey Bruce residents to primary care.”
That’s since January 2025.
For 2026-2027, they want to attach another 9,000 patients. “As of this morning, since April 1st 2026, we’ve already attached almost 1,700 individuals to primary care so we’re 20 per cent of the way towards that goal,” says Johnston.
She says the number of unattached patients was what they worked from, saying, “It’s what we built a master plan, a master attachment plan based off of. When we did this last year with all of our partners it was estimated that we would require an additional $11 million of base funding annually from the Province in order to have enough capacity locally to have everyone attached to a physician or NP close to home. We have received as of this April, confirmation that we have as a region an additional $7 million of base funding locally and our target for this year specifically is to attach an addition 9,000 Grey Bruce residents to primary care.”
Johnston says they’re anticipating two more opportunities to apply for more funding and they may need about $4 million more to attach people to primary care by 2029.
When asked about challenges, Johnston explained, “The anticipated constraints of having these additional positions funded and finding providers to fill them isn’t as great as we anticipated. With a lot of the work that’s been done throughout the province in increasing nurse practitioner positions in different academic facilities as well as even locally, at Georgian (College in Owen Sound) all the work that they’ve been doing to increase the number of RN and RPN and MOA (medical office assistant) graduates we’re actually finding that the positions are being filled in some areas it takes more time, but we are able to find those individuals.”
She noted, “Infrastructure is and continues to be likely the biggest constraint that we have.”
Johnston explained, “The funding cap for one-time funding for any of these proposals in $100,000. So there is no opportunity as an Ontario Health Team or as primary care organizations to actually apply for any infrastructure funding. We have consistently asked the Province what do you expect us to do then? Essentially. And there has been no answer to date unfortunately.”
Johnston s recommends alignment, adding, “I think there is enough people to come together to figure it out but I think it is collaborating. If there is a way for us (OHT) to collaborate with counties, municipalities, the primary care leaders and all align on the advocacy, I think that is the best approach and hopefully one that will be effective, but truly the mandate cannot be achieved if there’s not that infrastructure to support it.”