Complaints to Ontario's patient ombudsman rose in the last year.
According to the annual report, between April 2024 and March 2025, the ombudsman received 4,886 new complaints, including a 16 per cent increase in written complaints and eight per cent jump in complaints to the call centre.
Craig Thompson, the patient ombudsman since 2021, said his office oversees hospitals, long-term care facilities, home and community care.
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Thompson does not oversee complaints about doctors as they fall within the purview of the regulatory college.
The ombudsman received 131 complaints from the Simcoe and Muskoka region, including 103 about public hospitals, 12 about long-term care homes, 12 about home and community care and four about community surgical and diagnosis centres.
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According to the office of the ombudsman, about four per cent of the people name two or more health organizations in a complaint. Patients and caregivers may live in regions that differ from where the health organization is located, for example, if they travel for care or a caregiver lives in one region and is complaining about an organization that their loved one accessed in another region.
The complaints from Simcoe County and Muskoka included quality of care, discharge, transfer and transition and diagnosis and treatment.
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The ombudsman does not release data about individual hospitals or long-term care homes.
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Provincewide, there was a 29 per cent increase in complaints about obstetrical and gynecological care.
There were also more than 400 complaints about experiences in emergency departments.
More than one-third of complainants had concerns with the overall quality of care they received, 20 per cent expressed concerns about long wait times and 15 per cent described a lack of sensitivity, caring, courtesy and respect in their interactions with health care providers.
Thompson said he's not concerned about the increase in the number of complaints.
"More complaints are better for me," he said. "It's a healthy feedback mechanism that every health care system must have. What we do not want to see is the same reports have the same complaints. And we do not want to see the same complaints with the same organizations. So that's something that we that we monitor."
He said this was the case last year with an increase in complaints accessing pregnancy and birthing care.
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"It's troubling to continue to have to follow up on things that we've already identified and spotlight," he said.
He said the information from his office is provided to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term care.
"We have mechanisms that allow us to escalate quickly to the ministries when we see something that is really concerning," he said.
In the past year, the office did six investigations, the highest number in a single year. The investigation resulted in 40 recommendations to health care organizations.
Included in the investigations were the experience of a resident of long term care home, security use of force in the emergency department and poor communication contributed to a pregnant patient leaving against medical advice.
"We would like to see complaints continue to rise and they will rise organically just because of the awareness of the office," he said. "So, the sector is, I think, more comfortable with us. I also expect that the organizations that we work with will be doing a better job of their own complaint resolution based on an interaction with us."
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