The Ontario government plans to reclaim COVID-19 loans to doctors in the province
TORONTO – The Ontario government says it plans to recover loan payments made to doctors at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic to cover their increased costs and lost revenue from lower patient numbers.
In a memo released Friday to the Ontario Medical Association, which was obtained by The Canadian Press, the province says it is “critical” to recover more than $521 million in outstanding loan payments to fund other priorities.
Starting next month, the Health Department will withhold salary from doctors’ monthly OHIP payments over a one-year period, instead of the original five-month timeline it first proposed, with no interest charged.
The ministry says that when the COVID-19 Advance Payment Program was launched in April 2020, it was clear that monthly loan installments to eligible healthcare providers were to be paid back.
Since loan repayments began in April 2021, it says it has recovered nearly $139 million of the total $660 million it provided.
But after collecting the first round of payments, the province halted the loan recovery process “until further notice” a month later, arguing that the resumption of payments would be “motivated by the circumstances of the pandemic”.
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 15, 2023.
