Ontario Connecting Nearly 13,000 More People to Primary Care in Simcoe North

April 13, 2026

The Ontario government is taking the next steps to deliver its Primary Care Action Plan, which is on track to connect everyone in the province to a family doctor or primary care provider by 2029.
As part of this plan to connect everyone in Ontario to a publicly funded family doctor or primary care team, the Ontario government is investing more than $5.6 million this year to connect up to 12,915 people to primary care in Simcoe North.

“This investment by the province through the Primary Care Action Plan, is strengthening access to timely, connected care for families across Ontario and our region. I am proud to congratulate Chigamik Community Health Care and the Couchiching Family Health Team on receiving this well-deserved funding,” said Jill Dunlop, MPP for Simcoe North. “This support will expand services, improve patient access, and help ensure more people can receive the care they need closer to home. Together, these investments are building healthier, more resilient communities for today and for the future.”

The Couchiching Family Health Team and Chigamik Community Health Centre will establish a process to accept new patients and will communicate this to their local community.

The Couchiching Family Health Team and Chigamik Community Health Centre were funded through the latest call for proposals under the Primary Care Action Plan, with all 124 teams receiving funding expected to connect another 500,000 patients to primary care across Ontario. Each team has established a plan to attach a high proportion of unattached people in their community, including those on the Health Care Connect waitlist.

Through the 2026 Budget, the province is also increasing overall funding for the plan to a total of $3.4 billion between 2025 and 2029.

“This funding marks an important step forward in ensuring that everyone in our community will be connected to a primary care provider so they can receive the care they need, when they need it,” said Lynne Davies, CEO of the Couchiching Family Health Team. “We are grateful to our primary care practitioners for their continued dedication, and to our partners at the Couchiching Ontario Health Team and the Primary Care Network for their leadership and support in advancing this proposal. We also thank Ontario Health and the Government of Ontario for their ongoing investment in primary care.”

“As an anchor member of the North Simcoe Ontario Health Team, CHIGAMIK is proud that our collective proposal to expand interprofessional primary care teams has been selected. This is an important step forward for our region and reflects the strength of collaboration across our community. We know that people experience better health outcomes when they have access to team-based, wraparound care. This expansion will bring additional resources to work alongside primary care providers, helping patients and clients navigate services and access the supports they need, when they need them. This investment will help more people in North Simcoe connect to primary care while also strengthening access to services such as counselling, system navigation, physiotherapy, and case management—ensuring care is more connected, coordinated, and centred around the whole person.” ~Suzanne Marchand, Executive Director of Centre de santé communautaire CHIGAMIK Community Health Centre and Co-Chair of the North Simcoe Ontario Health Team

The province has also exceeded its 2025-2026 attachment goal under the Primary Care Action Plan, which was to connect 300,000 patients to a primary care provider by March 31, 2026. As of January 1, 2026, the province has already attached 330,000 people to care in 2025-2026, surpassing its goal by more than 30,000 with three months still to go.

“Through our Primary Care Action Plan, we are connecting more people to care and have already exceeded our 2025-26 attachment target,” said Sylvia Jones, Deputy Premier and Minister of Health. “By connecting more families to care in Location, our government is taking the next step toward connecting everyone in the province to primary care by 2029.”

Through Your Health: A Plan for Connected and Convenient Care, the Ontario government continues to take bold and decisive action to grow the province’s highly skilled health-care workforce and ensure people and their families have access to high-quality care, closer to home, for generations to come.