Hospitals re-admit 1 in 12 patients within 30 days

Hospital patients are being pushed out of hospital too quickly and hospital workers have long seen the sorry result for patients. So it is not so surprising that the Canadian Institute for Health Information reports that 1 in 12 patients are back in an inpatient bed within 30 days of being discharged from hospital .

Canada is a low end outlier in terms of hospital beds, with half of the international norm for acute care on a per capita basis. Ontario is even lower, having cut 30,000 hospital beds in the last 30 years. Ontario had three times more hospital beds per capita 30 years ago than it does now. Accordingly, Ontario hospital bed occupancy is off the charts compared to other developed nations. That in itself is very dangerous.

Worse, the Ontario government plans to cut hospital capacity further. Ontario hospital inpatient capacity has fallen 33.5% in the last 15 years. We now have the lowest hospital inpatient capacity per capita of all the provinces – indeed, even the next lowest province has quite a bit more capacity.

Ontario spends less per capita on health care than the rest of Canada. This is entirely due to the low spending on the hospital sector.

Health Minister Deb Matthews continues to spin the nice sounding fairy tale that we can continue to cut hospital services simply by increasing home care (even while her government has reduced home health care services and slowed the increase in home support services). The reality is the lack of adequate home care is only one small part of a much bigger problem.

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