Health Minister Deb Matthews says she is open to the Ombudsman’s Office investigating complaints about the province’s health and long-term care system.

It is a marked departure for provincial governments of all stripes that have vehemently opposed having ombudsman’s office sticking its nose into what happens at hospitals and other facilities. Ontario is the only province where the ombudsman has no jurisdiction over this sector.

“I wouldn’t close the door on the ombudsman,” Matthews told the Star in an exclusive interview.

Earlier this week, Premier Kathleen Wynne appeared to slam that door shut when she rebuffed a demand by NDP Leader Andrea Horwath to give Ombudsman André Marin the power to probe systemic problems in hospitals and long-term care.

This seemed directly at odds with overtures that former premier Dalton McGuinty made toward Marin before proroguing the legislature in October. “He told me André, it’s not a matter of if you will have oversight . . . it’s a question of when,” Marin recalled.

Like Wynne, Matthews makes the argument there are a number of ways already in place for people to raise concerns or complain.

“There is significant oversight now in our hospitals, the College of Physicians and Surgeons, all of the regulated health professionals, home care, long-terms care, we got Health Quality Ontario, the Excellent Care for All Act . . . there is a lot that’s already there,” she said.

NDP health critic MPP France Gélinas said the Liberal government until now “is just as resistant as people are insistent, for the same reasons, because the ombudsman is really good at his job, he’s really good at shining a light on cracks in the system and things that need to be changed and cannot be ignored anymore.”

“They (Liberals) are afraid of what he will find,” she told the Star.

Matthews acknowledged that even so, more may have to be done. “We have to explore what else we need to make sure that patients do have their voice heard.”

And that, she said, includes giving Marin, who has been ombudsman since 2005, the oversight that he has been asking for several years now both personally and on his office website.

“We are the only ones not overseeing hospitals and we will shortly be the only one not overseeing long-term care,” Marin said, referring to proposed New Brunswick legislation respecting long-term care.

“And there is really no excuse for that,” he said.

Marin remarked that there are always stories in the media about hospitals and long-term care.

“There are always tough systemic issues that arise for which there’s no mechanism to address it that’s independent of the ministry of health and long-term care or the hospitals,” he said.

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“The perfect solution is just to move the problem to an outside agency and we are particularly positions to assume that role,” he said, adding that’s not the role for a hospital’s patients’ advocate office.

“We hear horror stories about patient advocates involving complicated cases where they are rubber stamping the role of hospitals. They’re not equipped to do the kind of work that we do.”