Niagara hospital kept superbug deaths quiet: MPP calls for government investigation

Bullet News in Niagara reports that

Niagara Health System (NHS) officials kept quiet the deaths of five C. difficile patients at hospitals in Niagara Falls and Welland, even as they struggled to bring under control an official outbreak at St. Catharines General where 10 elderly patients have died in less than four weeks.

The Bullet adds that as late as Friday afternoon, NHS officials had made no mention of the deaths of four C. difficile patients at Greater Niagara General hospital and one at Welland County General hospital between May 12 and June 16. The deaths were revealed later Friday – a full day after official outbreaks were declared at the Welland and Niagara Falls hospitals – by way of a single sentence at the bottom of a notice posted on the health system’s website.

“I just can’t believe it,” said Niagara Falls MPP Kim Craitor, who said he intends to contact Ontario Health Minister Deb Matthews over the weekend to ask her to launch an investigation. “This warrants a complete investigation of the management of the NHS,” said Craitor, who learned of the deaths when contacted by a Bullet News reporter Friday evening.

“This is huge. They’re hiding deaths.”

Niagara Falls Mayor Jim Diodati went even further. Diodati, a vocal critic of NHS restructuring, said he lost all confidence in the ability of NHS to manage the outbreaks gripping Niagara’s three largest acute-care hospitals. Diodati said said he thinks it’s time for the province to appoint a hospital supervisor.

For its part the Hospital told Bullet News that there’s no reason to believe the outbreaks are related, or that the results have been caused by cross contamination of sites due to patients transfers. “These are three separate outbreaks and there’s no evidence to suggest they’re linked at this time.”

OCHU has long called for the province to require hospitals to report superbug deaths.

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