Ontario hospital are among the most efficient in the country

Health care in Ontario is efficient compared to other provinces, and efficient public hospitals are the main way this has been achieved.

• Provincial government health care spending in 2010 is $173 per capita less than the other provinces

• 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.

• In contrast with hospital funding, 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 has grown since 2005 when it was only $126 more in Ontario.

• Ontario also spends more per capita on drugs, even a little more than Quebec which is the home of the brand name drug industry in Canada. Per capita, Ontario spends $61 more than the other province per capita. The gap has remained pretty constant since 2005.

• Ontario would have to increase hospital spending by 3.5% to match the average of the other provinces. Notably, almost all of that could be achieved if physician and drug spending also matched what other provinces are spending.

These figures are based on a Ontario Hospital Association report that used data from the recent 2010 National Healthcare Expenditure Report published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI).

dallan@cupe.ca

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