Skip to main content

Government promise of 60 hospital beds for Windsor is much less than it seems

The Ontario government has finally taken some steps to respond to the long-standing problem of bed shortages in Windsor, promising 60 new beds.  Quite a turn-around, given the full-on attack on hospital services that characterizes much of government health policy.

There has been a whole stream of hospital back-up problems in Windsor -- the elimination of 120 hospital beds between  1996 and 2010,  a major increase in ambulance off-load delays, an attempt to impose an illegal $600 a day charge on hospital patients,  an officially recognized bed crisis, the failure of a public-private partnership long term care project, and, most recently, the failed attempt to create 18 hospital beds in a for-profit retirement home.

It's not clear what finally got the government to make such a promise.

They have promised 30 inpatient beds and 10 rehabilitation beds for Windsor. 

They have also promised twenty "short stay" beds -- but it is not clear (to me) if these are supposed to replace the 18 "assess and restore" hospital beds that were previously promised for the for-profit retirement home.  Assess and restore hospital beds can help patients recover in hospital after an acute episode enabling them to return home when they are ready (a plus for a government bent on stopping patients from moving into long-term care facilities, I reckon).

New beds don't make up loses
But even this major step is much less than it seems.  The Windsor Star helpfully reports that the addition of 60 beds will bring the hospital to 610 beds in 2013.  What is not reported, however, is that this is 59 fewer beds than the 669 beds the hospital reported in 2010.

Even 610 beds may be an exaggeration -- the hospital currently claims only 523 beds on its web site. Sixty more would leave them at 583, 86 fewer beds than 2010. That's a lot of beds to lose in three years.

Wage freeze
In other Windsor news, the chair of the Regional Hospital board worried the cap on wages for non-union employees would hamper recruitment:  “This has to be monitored to ensure our fiscal responsibility does not interfere with being able to recruit and retain staff in order to continue being an employer of choice."  

The hospital CEO (who rarely seems to miss a chance to speak to the media) helpfully added that a "1% wage increase for all WRH staff would cost $2 million dollars to implement. For senior staff 1% increase is $15,000."   This from the guy who complains relentlessly about the wages paid to his unionized employees and the interest arbitration system that helps set those wages.

Chemotherapy contracted-in
The good news? After the recent discovery that chemotherapy drugs supplied by a private contractor for 290 Windsor Regional patients were watered down, the hospital has brought the work back into their own hospital pharmacy (at least for now). The hospital CEO declined to name the company involved, saying that the company had threatened legal action if they were named publicly. Cancer patients are planning their own lawsuits as well. Seventeen of the Windsor patients affected have died, although it is unknown if this was connected to the chemo drug problems.
 Photo: The Detroit River ice thaws -- looking over  to Windsor,  DTWpuck

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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
Post a Comment
Read more

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. 
Post a Comment
Read more

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
Post a Comment
Read more