More contracting-out problems for the Ontario Liberals?

The Toronto Sun reports that tomorrow the Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter will release a follow-up to his report on contracting-out by eHealth Ontario, a report that set out some pretty rotten contracting-out practices.

The Auditor General told the Sun his office was asked to conduct spot audits on the use of consultants at the Ontario Ministry of Health, Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and hospitals.

“We look at the procurement and oversight of consultants at the ministry,” McCarter said of his 30-page report. “We picked a few LHINs to have a look at and we went out to a number of hospitals to have a look at consultants’ procurement and use and ... (the report says) here’s what we found”.

When the Auditor General's report on eHealth came out in October 2009, Toronto Star columnist Jim Coyle noted that the Auditor General had highlighted the near total reliance on outside consultants at e-Health. By 2008, the eHealth Program Branch had almost 300 consultants compared to fewer than 30 full-time employees.

"Relying too heavily on consultants can be costly," the Auditor said. "Consultants are generally a lot more expensive than employees, and when they finish a project, they leave, often taking with them the expertise needed to maintain and operate the system they helped develop."

Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said he suspects the new report from the Auditor will expose a continuing pattern of using consultants inappropriately, similar to the revelations at eHealth Ontario and Cancer Care Ontario.

The eHealth contracting-out scandal helped force out the Health Minister David Caplan, along with the CEO of eHealth, and the board chair of eHealth, so the Conservatives may be hoping for more damage to the Liberal government.

dallan@cupe.ca

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