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Showing posts from November, 2010

More cash for Muskoka hospital

The Ontario government  has given another $4.5 million to Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC).  The cash is being rolled into the hospital's operational base funding  this year to help the hospital deal with its deficit.  The hospital had already closed one of its sites, raising the ire of the local community. As reported earlier , the hospital had a $6 million deficit and the local community was fighting for the hospital . The North Simcoe Muskoka LHIN says that it submitted  in April 2010 a report to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care that MAHC’s deficit could not be achieved through further changes to the organization. Additional funding would be required. For its part, the hospital appears quite confident that it will get another $1.5 million next year. The LHIN claims that of 155 hospital corporations in Ontario, Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare was the only organization unable to sign their Hospital Service Accountability Agreement due to their inability to commit

U.S. CDC report estimates that billions could be saved by preventing hospital superbugs

A 2009 study from the U.S. Centre for Disease Control  (CDC) estimates that the annual medical costs to treat Hospital Acquired Infections (HAIs)  at U.S. hospitals ranges from $28.4 billion to $45 billion (the range depends in large part on different inflation estimates).  This is a major increase in costs from a 1992 study of U.S. HAIs. The report estimates that the benefits of prevention range from a low of $5.7 billion (estimating that only 20 percent of infections are preventable) to a high of $31.5 billion (estimating that 70 percent of infections are preventable).  The costs of preventing HAIs are not included in these savings. If similar benefits of prevention are realized in Canada based on a population comparison, we could see hospital cost savings between $625 million and $3.45 billion.  In Ontario, the savings would be between $239 million and $1.32 billion (with the mid-point being a $779 million savings). That is significant when you consider the province spends abo

Ontario spends relatively less on hospitals and more on drugs and doctors

The Ontario Hospital Association (OHA) has just released a fairly interesting report entitled The Changing Face of Ontario Healthcare .   Here's what I draw from the report: Provincial government health care spending in 2010  is $173 per capita less in Ontario than other provinces.  That means $173 less for every person in the province for the year.  And that means a saving of $2.3 billion province-wide. All of this ( and more ) is accounted for by spending less per capita than other provinces on hospitals.  Ontario spends $262 less per capita than the other provinces.  In total that is a saving of $3.5 billion for all of Ontario. The gap between what Ontario spends and what other provinces spend has increased every year since 2005 when the difference was only $86 per capita. Unlike hospitals, Ontario spends more per capita than any other province on physicians: $192 more per capita than the other provinces. The gap between what Ontario spends and what other provinces spend

Critical reduction in hospital and community bed capacity -- Emergency Room Physicians

Alan Drummond, chair of Public Affairs with the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, writes this today in the Globe and Mail   regarding emergency room overcrowding: "For a decade, we allowed governments of all stripes to portray it as an issue of inappropriate use by patients with minor health concerns; we all knew, however, that the problem primarily rested with government cutbacks in the funding of health care, leading to a critical reduction in hospital and community bed capacity. " Tomorrow, the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions will rally at the Ministry of Health and LTC to defend those very same beds. See you there! dallan@cupe.ca

Health Minister defends privatization of hospital work by US Corporation

Deb Matthews, the Ontario Minister of Health and Long Term Care, has  leapt to the defense of a proposal to contract out hospital jobs in London.   “Every hospital in this province is working really, really hard to get best value for their money when it comes to health care. . . . If we can provide more front-line care, then that’s what we are trying to accomplish.” London hospitals are in negotiations with U.S. health-records giant Cerner Corp. According to the London Free Press about 30 full-time hospital jobs would be cut in London.  New Democrat Leader Andrea Horwath, who raised the prospect that patient confidentiality could be put at risk by the US corporation.  Matthews rejected the suggestion arguing “We’ve got some of the toughest privacy legislation anywhere...Every health-care organization here simply must comply with it. I have absolutely no reason to believe this change will, in any way, weaken their commitment to security of patient information.” Horwath said she

More cleaning recommended for Hamilton hospital fighting superbug

Eight new C. difficile cases were discovered at St. Joseph's Healthcare in Hamilton over the weekend, bringing the total number to 51.  The hospital relied solely on a new, DNA- based lab test to detect the eight cases. A provincial inspection team visited the hospital Friday and made a number of recommendations, including adopting a more aggressive cleaning protocol that sees more frequent cleaning and in more hospital areas with an agent that kills C. diff bacteria spores. David Higgins, the hospital president,  says the hospital has already started implementing recommended strategies. dallan@cupe.ca

Are minor complaints clogging up our hospital ERs?

The Ontario government has probably spent millions on advertisements suggesting people use family health teams, urgent care centres, telehealth or just about anywhere except a hospital emergency room to get treatment for less serious medical problems.  So it is interesting to see Dr. Peter Toth, president of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians, say this about patients that could be treated elsewhere showing up at hospital ERs:  “These are extremely minor contributors to the problem (of overcrowded ERs), and they serve to take focus away from the root cause, which is hospitals are currently running at capacity of 100 per cent. Because of the overcapacity of the hospital, the backflow of its admitted [serious] patients happens in the emergency department, reducing our access to emergency patients.” The ER back ups are caused by overflowing hospitals and very high bed occupancy.  It is that problem that the government has got to solve, not stopping patients going to ERs.

Two tier home care. Privatized health care keeps creeping in while Liberals look the other way

While the Ontario government claims that expanded home care services are the answer to hospital cuts, the reality on the ground is a little different. The Hamilton Spectator reports that "patching together services from the CCAC, as well as private home health care agencies, is becoming more the norm as families struggle to help ailing family members stay in the home." "If they don't get enough hours from the CCAC we top them up," Yvonne Griggs chief executive officer of Alert Best Nursing and Home Care Solutions reports.  Families pay almost $24 an hour for a personal support worker who does meal preparations and help clients, who are mostly elderly, with bathing, exercises, and walking. Even Progressive Conservative health critic Christine Elliott says this is creating a two-tier system where those who can afford more services get better care.   "What's happening in Hamilton is indicative of what's happening across the province. CCACs a

Fifty to sixty patients die from C. Difficile per month in Ontario hospitals

Ontario has 200 to 300 cases of C. Difficile a month in hospitals, and up to 20 per cent of those patients die, says Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario's former chief medical officer of health. "That means we have 50 to 60 people a month dying in Ontario hospitals of this disease," said Schabas. St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton currently has a C. Difficile outbreak, with four patients dead.   In an earlier 2009 outbreak at the hospital, seven died. dallan@cupe.ca .

U.S. Healthcare: Privatized -- but government still spends more

The privatized health care system in the United States is widely known for being extremely expensive. U.S. citizens are stuck paying (through taxes or by private payment) much more than any other developed country for health care --in fact about 50% more than the next most expensive (Norway), according to the  recently released Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report on health care spending (discussed here ).  But less well known is that, even though millions of U.S. citizens have no health care insurance, and millions more are covered only by the basic 'medicaid' system, public spending on health care is actually higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada's (largely public) health care system. CIHI reports that U.S. public spending on health care was $3,507 in 2008 (in U.S. dollars), while Canadian public spending was $2,863 (also in U.S. dollars).  That's 22.5% higher.  In fact U.S. public spending was the third highest among the 26 developed coun