Skip to main content

Windsor Essex has lost over 120 hospital beds. That might just explain the bed crisis

There is a pretty simple explanation of the Windsor Essex hospital bed crisis: the provincial government has forced the closure of a lot of hospital beds in the area.


In 1995-96 there was 1,183 hospital beds at the three hospitals in the area.


Now, Windsor Regional Hospital claims 669 (for the year ended March 2010); Hotel Dieu, 305; and Leamington District something less than 88.  So now there is somewhere less than 1,062 beds in Windsor Essex.


That is a 10.2% reduction in the number of beds.


And this probably underestimates the cuts.  Leamington District, as far as I can find, does not report the current number of beds, but rather reports that they had 88 beds several years ago and then cut staff and beds.  Moreover, the start year noted above, 1995-96, was already six years into the massive beds cuts during the Harris and Rae governments.  Indeed, by 1996, about a quarter of the province's beds that existed in 1990 were gone. It's possible that Windsor Essex escaped these early cuts -- but not likely.


In fact, the number of beds in Windsor Essex now is less than the number of beds proposed by the Mike Harris government.


dallan@cupe.ca

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 ...

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...

The hospital crisis: No capacity, no plan, no end

While Canada has achieved universal public healthcare coverage, that does not mean conservative forces have given up trying to erode that coverage and expand corporate care where it does not currently exist. The battle has become particularly intense in Ontario under the Ford Progressive Conservative government, which is implementing serious cuts to the level of care and moving to bring in for-profit mini-hospitals. Inadequate Staffing.   Less and less of hospital spending is on staff.   Employee compensation as a share of hospital expenditures has consistently shrunk in Ontario. This is not some immutable law of hospital development.  It is in stark contrast with the rest of Canada, where compensation has become a larger share and now accounts for 67.1%. Hospitals in provinces other than Ontario now have 18 percent more staff per capita than hospitals in Ontario. Overall, if Ontario had the same staffing capacity as the other provinces and territories, there would be another...