Home care cutbacks AND hospital cutbacks in Ontario. The rationale for hospital cuts just keeps getting slimmer

The official theory from Deb Matthews, the Ontario Minister of Health and LTC, is that hospital services can be cut because so much more community care is being offered (for more on this see here and here.) So it was interesting to see a Toronto Star column today reporting that home care services have been cut:

So Community Care Access Centres (CCACs), the government agencies charged with coordinating health services in the province, have been forced to refer only the most needy cases for help. That means other outpatients who need services such as occupational therapy or speech-language therapy must go without or pay by themselves for private service. Evidence of the cuts is clear:
• Home visits by occupational therapists dropped 24 per cent in the 2008-09 fiscal year over the same period a year earlier.
• Visits by physiotherapists were down 9 per cent.
• Visits by dieticians were off 2 per cent.
• Visits by speech-language pathologists plunged a whopping 40 per cent, from 461,484 in the 2007-08 fiscal year to 274,068 visits in the last year.

The for-profit home care providers are squawking. The Star reports that many of the private home care firms are struggling to survive, laying off staff to stay afloat. In response to the sharp decline in patient referrals, the organization of for-profit home care companies will hold a round table meeting of all its members in September to address the squeeze to home care.

A useful start might be the elimination of profit from the home care system to free up a bit more for patient care.

dallan@cupe.ca

Comments

More spending on new hospitals and new beds? Nope

Hospital funding: There is something off about the provincial government's Budget claims on hospital capital funding (funding to build and renovate hospital beds and facilities). For what it is worth (which is not that much, given the long time frame the government cites), the province claims it will increase hospital capital spending over the next 10 years from $11 billion to $20 billion – or on average to about $2 billion per year. But, this is just a notional increase from the previous announcement of future hospital capital spending. Moreover, even if we did take this as a serious promise and not just a wisp of smoke, the government's own reports shows they have actually funded hospital infrastructure about $3 billion a year over the 2011/12-2015/16 period. So this “increase” is really a decrease from past actual spending. Even last year's (2016-17) hospital capital funding increase was reported in this Budget at $2.3 billion - i.e. about 15% more th

Ford government fails to respond to 72% increase in COVID inpatient days, deepening the capacity crisis

COVID infections continue to drive up hospital costs and inpatient hospitalizations in Ontario. For the most recent fiscal year (April 1, 2022- March 31, 2023) hospital stays related to COVID cost $1.221 billion, according to new CIHI data. This is about 4% of total hospital spending, creating a very significant new cost pressure beyond the usual pressures of population growth, aging, inflation, and rising utilization. Costs for COVID related hospitalizations increased 22.2% in Ontario in 2022/23 from the previous fiscal year, rising from $999 million to $1.221 billion. That rise is particularly notable as the OMICRON spike of late 2021 and early 2022 had passed by the the 2022/23 fiscal year. The $222 million increase in COVID hospitalization costs came in the same year as the Ford government cut special COVID funding and, in fact, cut total hospital funding by $156 million. In total, there were 60,653 COVID hospitalizations in Ontario in 2022/3, up from 47,543 in 2021/2.

Paramedic Services in Canada: Structure, Privatization, Unionization and other issues

Governance and Funding : While police and fire services are usually municipal services, Emergency Medical Services (EMS) are typically controlled by provincial governments. In Ontario, regional municipal governments have responsibility for delivering and funding EMS. But even in Ontario the province plays a key role, strictly regulating EMS, providing funding for 50% of the approved land ambulance costs, and paying 100% of the approved costs for air ambulance, dispatch, base hospitals, First Nation EMS, and for territories without municipal government. Delivery : Like police and fire services, EMS is predominantly a publicly provided service in Canada. But businesses have now made some significant in-roads into EMS, primarily Medavie, a private corporation based in the Maritimes that describes itself as not-for-profit. Medavie goes back over 70 years, with its roots in health insurance. It still operates Medavie Blue Cross with 1,900 employees. It now a

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog