Ontario home care "wait list" turns into the home care "forget list".

As often noted in this space, the Ontario Liberal government claims they are expanding community care to make up for all the cuts to hospital care.

Well now it looks like even the Toronto Star can't quite swallow that one. Today, Star luminary Bob Hepburn follows up his recent column on cuts to home care with another one (Chilling tales of home-care crisis call for action) and its worth a read. Here's an excerpt:

D’Andrea is one of tens of thousands of Ontario residents affected in the past year by the quiet move by government agencies that connect patients with community health services to slash funding for all except what they deem to be the worst cases. Such critical services include those provided by speech-language pathologists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, dieticians, nurses and others. The result is that patients are now getting just a fraction of the help they really require or are forced to go on lengthy wait lists. At the same time, highly skilled health professionals who serve these patients have seen their caseloads cut dramatically or, in a rapidly growing number of cases, have been laid off from their jobs.These are clear signs that community care is in crisis. But while all this turmoil has been happening, there’s been almost total silence from Queen’s Park politicians, including Premier Dalton McGuinty, Health Minister Deb Matthews and ordinary MPPs.

So forget the Liberal excuses. They are squeezing hospital services and home care services.

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