Windsor hospital bed fees illegal says seniors advocacy group

Jane Meadus, a lawyer with the Toronto-based Advocacy Centre for the Elderly, says it's illegal for hospitals to charge patients $600 per day, even if they refuse to leave for a bed in a nursing home.

Meadus said that under the Health Insurance Act, the maximum a hospital can charge a patient awaiting placement is $53.23 per day. "That doesn't change in a crisis," she said. (The $600 fee planned by Windsor hospitals comes with a designation of a hospital bed crisis in the area.) She said the demands for extra payment come when patients and their families are particularly stressed and vulnerable.

Windsor Regional Hospital president and CEO David Musyj said he's aware of the group's position on the hiked fees, but the new policy won't change. "I disagree with her interpretation of the regulations," said Musyj.

He said the $600 fee is not meant to be a revenue generator or meant as a threat to patients to free up beds, but is designed to encourage "a discussion taking place" with the patient and family when there is an alternative available to remaining in the hospital.

"I don't want to turn this into an attack on seniors or this group. It's not their fault," Musyj said of the elderly patients

Well, Musyj may not, but seniors are still going to be forced out of the hospital and shipped down the highway to Leamington. And that sure sounds like an attack on their rights.

Hospitals are faced with a budget crunch imposed by the provincial government which is leading to very high bed occupancy, backlogs in the ER, paramedic off-load delay, and cancelled surgeries. So, unsurprisingly, other hospitals around the province have also adopted high bed fees to encourage patients to move to other facilities.

Reflecting the problem, Musyj adds, "I'm the one who gets the phone call from the patient whose surgery is cancelled."

dallan@cupe.ca

Comments

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...

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 Medav...

Defend Public Healthcare

Search This Blog