Stoney Point needs primary care: Pharmacist, resident call for action from Ontario leaders

The Healthpoint pharmacy in Stoney Point, Ont., — a rural community in Lakeshore — is fighting for a nurse practitioner and hoping provincial leaders make it a priority this election.

"We need to have access for every single Canadian to have access for a primary care provider," said Mina Seifin, the pharmacist at Healthpoint.

The community is under-served, with an aging population. It's been several years since the last doctor practicing in Stoney Point retired. 

The pharmacy tries to fill the gap as best it can by offering a walk-in Telehealth clinic, but it's not enough. 

"The area is still in need," he said, adding that he himself is without a primary care provider.

The pharmacy applied for a nurse practitioner in partnership with the Lakeshore Nurse-Practitioner Led Clinic in 2023. It was done at a time when the province had been accepting proposals to expand primary-care teams. Seifin said at the time, they had collected 800 signatures from people looking for a primary care provider.

The application was denied, but Seifin said he doesn't know why, explaining that it's been frustrating — and he doesn't know what to do next.

Community is 'frustrated'

"It's very challenging," he said, adding that people in the community are "more frustrated" than he is.

Margaret Bradley, who lives nearby, says it was upsetting when the application fell through. She's felt the impact of the primary care shortage first hand. Bradley has been unable to find a provider since her doctor retired. 

"I started going downhill because I wasn't seeing a doctor," she said. "I ended up having a heart attack."

Election promises

Healthcare has been big topic during Ontario's snap election with all the main parties making significant promises.

Bradley and Seifin are one of 2.5 million Ontarians who don't have a primary care provider.

The PC's plan would involve creating 305 new primary care teams — with an unspecified number of physicians — at a cost of $1.8 billion, providing two million more Ontarians access to primary care. While that number falls short of the estimated number who currently don't have a family doctor, PC Leader Doug Ford has repeatedly spoken of it as connecting every single person in the province to a family physician. 

The Liberals pledge to spend $3.1 billion to recruit an additional 3,100 family doctors by 2029, along with what Leader Bonnie Crombie calls a "guarantee" of a family doctor for everyone in Ontario. 

The NDP promises to spend $4.05 billion to recruit 3,500 new doctors over the next four years – more money and more physicians than either the PCs or Liberals. Just like Crombie, NDP Leader Marit Stiles pitches the promise as a "guarantee" of access to a family doctor. 

The Green Party wants to recruit 3,500 family doctors to set everyone up with one in the next three to four years

With the election just days away, Bradley hopes candidates make healthcare their top priority.

"Unless we rise up and really make it a focus of the election, it won't [change]. They will just say whatever. And I think that the province's direction right now is to destroy healthcare and put it on the American plan. That's what Ford's up to," she said.

"So if something doesn't change there, we're in trouble. So I don't have much hope right now."

Meanwhile, the clinic is fully equipped and ready to go for a family practice — it's just in need of a practitioner.