My question is to the Minister of Health. Yan Ping Ye lives in the Chinatown area, and she doesn’t have a family doctor. After not sleeping and feeling dizzy for four days, she had no choice but to go to the Toronto Western emergency room, one of the busiest hospitals in Ontario. Yan waited seven hours overnight, but eventually left without a prescription or help because there was no one in the emergency room who spoke Cantonese or Mandarin, and Yan is not fluent in English.

Minister, do you think it’s acceptable that thousands of people in the Chinatown area have to go to an emergency room for non-urgent care because they don’t have access to a family doctor?

The family doctor shortage in Toronto is bad and it is getting worse. In Chinatown, five doctors have already retired and two more are about to retire, which means over 7,000 people are going to be without a family doctor.

I am worried that this government is driving the primary health care system into the ground.

Minister, what is your plan to address the worsening family doctor and primary care provider shortage in underserved areas like Chinatown?

Thank you to the member for Toronto–St. Paul’s. I recently met with representatives from the Taddle Creek Family Health Team. They serve over 20,000 patients. They’re located on Bay Street. One of the people that was speaking to me said, “I’m worried about what happens at U of T. You have all these students. We know that there’s some very serious mental health challenges that some students are facing. They have some access to mental health on campus, and then they graduate and they’re on their own.” Can you speak to the government’s track record on providing access to mental health care for young people?