Skip to main content

Freedom of information in the hospital sector -- Is the government backing out?

Late last year, following contracting-out scandals at E-health, the LHINs, and the hospitals, the provincial government brought in the Bill 122, the Broader Public Sector Accountability Act.  The Act requires LHINs and hospitals to report annually on their use of consultants and also makes hospitals subject to the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act  as of January 1, 2012.  Once in place, records from the previous five years would be subject to freedom of information requests, the government assured us. 

But that was then.  

Apparently, the insurance industry and the Ontario Hospital Association were displeased with this turn of events.   

Recently, an amendment was introduced to the Budget bill (YES, of all things, the Budget bill). Under Schedule 15 of Bill 173, information and records provided to or prepared by a hospital committee regarding assessment of quality of care would be exempted from public access to information.  The terms of the exemption were broad and ill-defined.

Patient advocates and the Ontario Health Coalition (OHC) sprung into action and pressed for change.  

Even with the very short notice provided by the government, more than a dozen groups appeared at the legislative hearings concerning the Bill to ask the members of the legislature not to pass Schedule 15.

Subsequently, government members introduced an amendment, but little or no progress was evident. Here's how the OHC responded:

“The government’s amendment allows hospital executives to make some documents secret, by simply stamping “confidential” on them or retroactively suggesting that the records were intended to be private,” said Cybele Sack of ImPatient for Change, a patient advocacy group.  “Our freedom of information laws are meant to increase transparency and this amendment undermines that spirit.”....

“The government’s proposal to extend hospital secrecy significantly undermines the government’s own Public Sector Accountability Act,” (OHC Director, Natalie Mehra) added. “It puts the onus on patients and the public to undertake lengthy and complex appeals processes to justify seeking information from hospitals. It is entirely the wrong way around. Hospitals should have to show cause to keep information secret. They are publicly-funded institutions upon which every Ontarian relies for care. They should be more publicly accountable, not less.”


We need better access to hospital information.  As trade unionists we have experienced considerable difficulty getting legitimate information from the hospitals.   

The government told us its Broader Public Sector Accountability Act would provide better access.  Now,  they have to make good on that promise and develop a better process. 

The Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs will vote on amendments this Thursday morning  May 5 at 9 am, after which Bill 173 will go to the Ontario Legislature for final passage.



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...
Post a Comment
Read more

The long series of failures of private clinics in Ontario

For many years, OCHU/CUPE has been concerned the Ontario government would transfer public hospital surgeries, procedures and diagnostic tests to private clinics. CUPE began campaigning in earnest against this possibility in the spring of 2007 with a tour of the province by former British Health Secretary, Frank Dobson, who talked about the disastrous British experience with private surgical clinics. The door opened years ago with the introduction of fee-for-service hospital funding (sometimes called Quality Based Funding). Then in the fall of 2013 the government announced regulatory changes to facilitate this privatization. The government announced Request for Proposals for the summer of 2014 to expand the role of "Independent Health Facilities" (IHFs).  With mass campaigns to stop the private clinic expansion by the Ontario Health Coalition the process slowed.   But it seems the provincial Liberal government continues to push the idea.  Following a recent second...
Post a Comment
Read more