Skip to main content

Peterborough Cuts

The so-called 'hospital improvement plan' (HIP) is out for Peterborough Regional Health Centre. Or at least the slide show version of it. 

Instead of adopting the proposals in the Peer Review, the HIP came up with a bunch of new plans. That's hardly surprising -- the point is not "hospital improvement", the point is to cut, cut, and cut again.  The HIP proposes $23.3M in cuts and $3.7M in increased revenues (including a $2.6M increase in funding from the government). This compares with $25.7M in cuts and $1 million in increased local revenues proposed in the Peer Review. The number of beds to be cut is now 'only' 20, with perhaps some more bed cuts to come later.

Despite the decrease in dollar cuts proposed in the HIP, the number of full time equivalent positions (FTEs) to be eliminated has increased.  Instead of cutting 151.5 FTEs (as proposed by the Peer Review) they are now proposing to cut 171.9 FTEs – an increase 13.5%, or 20.4FTEs.

That's quite impressive - reduce the dollar cuts and increase the staff cuts!

Despite this, the PRHC media release claims “Our home-grown plan … minimizes job loss especially in clinical areas…” It also incorrectly states: “The interventions in PRHC’s recovery plan include … front line restructuring affecting about 150 FTE positions.”

More cuts could be planned.  Under the Peer Review, 9 telemetry FTEs and ten telemetry beds were to be cut. The HIP indicates that they will determine what to do with telemetry later.

The HIP plan is to increase the cuts to housekeeping and in dietary. So they will have more patients than planned, yet fewer housekeepers and fewer dietary workers!  Never mind -- hospital food is so good it can do with a few cutbacks. And there never was a connection between superbugs and housekeeping cuts.(Just kidding!)

They plan to get rid of 36 medical beds and create 32 ‘sub-acute’ beds. The HIP states that this increase in sub-acute beds ‘may impact the hospital's acute care, regional mandate’. I might add that these beds may be the next target for closure if further cuts are required in future years. That's where they typically focus the cuts (just ask your neighbours in Northumberland!).

Despite calling for the elimination of 171.9 FTEs (perhaps 250 employees, at a guess), the HIP estimates that there will be only 141 fewer employees by 31 March 2012 (2000 employees in total, down from 2141 now).  Bad arithmetic or something else?

Generally, it seems that the strategy the hospital has adopted has been to reduce the number of bed cuts so fewer patients will be physically pushed out onto the sidewalks, at least for now. For the patients that remain, however, you might want to aim for a bed near to the nursing station. You'll have more of a chance of flagging down a health care worker!

Quality of care anyone?  Surely Liberal MPP Jeff Leal can do better than this...

Comments

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

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