Was ORNGE really a rogue agency?

The disgraced former CEO of ORNGE, the province's air ambulance service, refused to accept any responsibility for the failings of the outfit when he appeared before a legislative committee on Wednesday. Indeed he indicated that the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care was apprised of what was going on.

In turn, Deb Matthews, the health minister, pointed her finger back at him and suggested she was not kept informed.

This is a hardly surprising exchange. In the union business, it becomes apparent pretty quickly that, for the bosses, water (and other things) flow downhill.

One of the outfits on the lower slopes is the Emergency Health Services (EHS) of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care. Mazza said he kept them in the loop. No doubt, the top bosses at the Ministry are highly impressed with the way EHS stayed on top of the air ambulance file.

While some in the media have bought the government line about the 'rogue' nature of ORNGE, the more likely story is that ORNGE was simply a little ahead of the government's curve. The result was reduced transparency, rich rewards for the bosses, business practices that could charitably be described as 'close to the edge', and poor service. But the cause of these developments was the privatization and commercialization of what should be a public service.

Despite their troubles with privatization at ORNGE and eHealth, it's apparent the government wants to privatize and commercialize more public services. The next few years will determine if they get away with it. Hopefully, the ORNGE and eHealth debacles will slow them down.

Sunday: the gory details on the privatization and commercialization of ORNGE.

Comments

Too many public sector workers in Ontario?

Opponents of public services often try to portray the public sector as having grown disproportionately. In fact, since 1976, the number of public sector employees has not quite kept pace with the population. In 1976, the number of public sector employees in Ontario as reported by Statistics Canada averaged 830,800. By 2012, the number had increased to 1,330,700 -- a 60.2% increase. That sounds like significant growth -- true. But the population has increased from 8,413,779 in 1976 to 13,505,900 in 2012, a 60.5% increase. In other words, population growth has run slightly ahead of the growth in public sector employment. In 1976, close to 10% of the population worked in the public sector. It stayed pretty much this way until the Mike Harris government came to power when it dipped below 9%. It returned close to the historical range in the last six years or so, declining in 2012 to below the 1976 averag...

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...

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...

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog