Defend Public Healthcare

Health Minister Deb Matthews is sticking to her  line to explain the $24.7 million in cuts planned for Hamilton area hospitals this year. " We have to rebalance our health care system so we've got more money invested in home care and community based care.  Too many people are in hospital when they don't need to be in hospital and they could be cared for at home if the resources were there," Matthews told the Hamilton Spectator .    Hamilton Health Sciences is shaving $15 million while St. Joe's is looking to cut $7.5 million.  Joseph Brant hospital in Burlington is looking to save $2.2 million.  The Spec lays out the following cuts planned for Hamilton Health Sciences: "$1 million in service cuts to operating rooms, the west-end urgent care centre and to musculoskeletal outpatient physiotherapy; $1 million to delay robotic dispensing of medications; $2.9 million shaved from administration and support such as reducing costs of contracts; $0.8 milli...

Hamilton hospital managers are raising concerns about the new fee-for-service funding system for hospitals. The Hamilton Spectator reports that the new funding model will force 60 per cent of hospitals to lower their costs because the fees paid will be based on the cost per case of hospital's at the 40 percentile. Every hospital in Hamilton has costs higher than the 40th percentile.  The Spectator adds that Hamilton hospitals say there is no way they can match the costs of community hospitals that send their toughest cases to them. They want to be compared against other hospitals that care for the sickest and most complex patients.  "It's going to be fairly daunting," Dr. Bill Evans, president of Juravinski Hospital and Cancer Centre, told the Spec. "Whether it's truly possible to deliver the volume of care at that level of funding remains to be seen.... Fortieth percentile seems terribly low to me. But it is what it is and we'll just have to...

St. Joseph's Home Care in Hamilton (part of the same outfit that runs St Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton) is  imposing two tier wages on home care workers.   For new home care contracts, Personal Support Workers (PSWs) will earn about 15% less, the Hamilton Spectator reports.  The Spectator expects a new home care system to be introduced in the fall. St. Joseph's believes the new wages will "position" the organization for a wave of new home care contracts.   (The current system of compulsory contracting has been under suspension in Ontario for years  -- after multiple failures). St. Joseph's Home Care boss, Kim  Ciavarella  claims  “In the old contracts, we were bidding to be the lowest bidder. That's our decade past. I really see a fundamental shift coming.” In fact in the old  compulsory contracting system, the government also claimed that it wasn't about being the lowest bidder.  Despite abundant evidence to the contrary, 'q...

Hamilton Health Sciences is warning that it will have to cut costs by $15 to $22 million, the Hamilton Spectator reports.  The range in cost cutting is based on funding increases in 2012-13 of either 0% or 1%.   The hospital expects about 140 jobs will be affected, but says its goal is to accomplish the cuts  through attrition rather than layoffs.  The hospital Executive Vice-President,  Murray Glendining, told the Spectator that  he is getting   “a little nervous” the hospital won’t get the 1 per cent increase.

Paramedics are spending 10 minutes longer on emergency calls in 2011 compared to 2010 in Hamilton.  EMS Director Brent Bowett told the Hamilton Spectator that time is mostly spent off-loading patients at hospitals. Hospital bed overloads ultimately back up in emergency rooms, forcing paramedics to wait until hospital staff can assume care for ambulance patients.   Hospital restructuring and a growing demand for EMS are also cited as reasons for the growing strain on the EMS system.  Mario Posteraro, the head of OPSEU local that represents paramedics in Hamilton, told the Spectator , “Clearly there’s a need for additional front-line services. I think we’ll be back before council asking for additional resources". Hamilton city councillors want the province to provide an additional $585,000 for an extra ambulance crew to be on call 12 hours a day, seven days a week.  That would cover 100% of the extra costs.  (Typically the province pays 50% o...

A staff report going to Hamilton's Emergency and Community Services Committee next week will report 94 Code Zero events in 2010 - where one or less ambulances  are available to respond to an emergency.  This is an increase from 43 in 2009, 66 in 2008 and 44 in 2007, according to the Hamilton Mountain News. In other words, a 114% increase in 2010 over 2009.  As noted earlier,  there are concerns that hospital restructuring (where the McMaster emergency room will  close to adults) will make the matters worse by requiring more transfer time. OPSEU paramedic president Mario Posteraro told the News : " The elastic has been stretched and will break, unless there is an infusion of needed dollars. "  Forced overtime and missed meal breaks are already pushing Hamilton paramedics to their limit, and patient service could suffer with the added pressures expected after the restructuring on April 4, according to Mr. Posteraro. dallan@cupe.ca

St. Joseph’s hospital  in Hamilton has begun to report the number of its patients who have died with hospital acquired infections, according to the Hamilton Spectator . In this, St. Joe’s is leading the way.  OCHU called years ago for the province to require hospitals to release information about hospital acquired infections (HAIs).  Eventually, the province did require hospitals to report the incidence of some of the most widespread HAIs. But the province still does not require hospitals to report patients who died with HAIs.  So here, St. Joe's deserve some recognition.  St. Joe’s is now one of the few hospitals with a broader public disclosure policy for HAIs.  Sixteen infected patients died at St. Joe's in a 3½-month surge of C. difficle.   The outbreak ended Feb. 11. The province should require all hospitals to report patients who have died infected with HAIs, and not leave it to  those willing to put their neck...

Another patient with C. Difficile has died at St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton.  That makes seven since October.  One of those deaths has been directly attributed to the disease, five others are under investigation, and, in one death, C. Difficile has been ruled out as the cause of death.  What makes this situation unusual is that there is a public report of the deaths. The Hamilton Spectator  has followed this issue for some time and continues to report on it.  It's also interesting that the hospital is determining what killed these patients.  Government has claimed that it is hard to do this. While the government met OCHU's demand to publicly report superbug infections at hosptials, it still refuses to require the hospitals to report patients who have died due to (or even with) superbug infections -- MRSA, C. Difficle, VRE. Many more patients are dying from these superbugs in hospitals all over the province. But without public r...

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

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 .

The press secretary to Minister of Health Deb Matthews, said Friday the province is planning for a funding increase for the Hamilton Niagara Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) “in the very near future.”  The Hamilton Spectator   reported   just prior to this announcement that the CCAC was cutting home care services to deal with a deficit shaping up to be in the $10 to 12 million range this fiscal year. The government's increase for the CCAC however will only amount to$2.3 million, or 1%.  So the cuts, it seems are going to keep on coming. The increase for homecare (such as it is) is still 1% more than  earlier reports had suggested  -- and we are more than half way through the fiscal year.  But I don't think this announcement quite qualifies as a "step forward". The 1% is reportedly part of the province-wide increase for CCACs.  The (acting) boss of the "Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant ...

The Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant Community Care Access Centre has run up a $5 million deficit so far this year.  If it doesn't make significant cuts, the shortfall will grow to between $10 million and $12 million by March 31, the end of the fiscal year, according to the Hamilton Spectator . To cut costs, new patients needing more than 60 hours of home care a month will have to stay in hospital on indefinite waiting lists. New home care clients will get only one bath a week unless they are incontinent and those at low risk will face wait lists for services. Other patients will be sent to community nursing clinics for care instead of having home care come to them. Hospitals worry the result will be backlogs, particularly in the emergency department. "It impacts the whole system from end to end," said Mary MacLeod, vice-president of patient services at Burlington's Joseph Brant Memorial Hospital. The Ontario Minister of Health, Deb Matthews has claimed that...

The McGuinty government flak catchers at the Hamilton Niagara Haldimand Brant LHIN just keep at it. Not satisfied with all the (negative) attention they received for effectively shutting down the hospitals in Fort Erie and Port Colbourne, they are now in the midst of shutting down 181 complex continuing care beds across the LHIN. The Hamilton Spectator reports today that between "December and May, area hospitals closed 123 of 809 beds used to treat the dying, patients with multiple complex conditions, seniors with dementia and those needing restorative care to get home. " The plan is to close a further 58 beds by April 2012. "We've been able to reduce the number of beds without reducing access to service because the CCAC (Community Care Access Centre) is now taking care of these individuals in the community said Alan Iskiw, LHIN interim CEO. This does not sit well with widespread reports that the CCACs (which oversee home care) are cutting services to deal ...

The Hamilton Spectator reports that  "[h]undreds of area families are turning to a private health service to get their children treatment for autism and other developmental disabilities because of long waits and gaps in publicly funded care.  A growing company called blueballoon has 1,400 clients in the Hamilton and Burlington area who pay as much as $125 an hour to get their kids help with a wide range of issues ".(My emphasis.) Paying privately is sometimes the only way to get access to optimal care, acknowledges Dr. Peter Szatmari, who heads McMaster University's division of child psychiatry and is considered one of the world's leading experts in autism.  And even McMaster Children's Hospital, which has among the best autism services in Canada, needs more resources. Szatmari says improvements need to be made to ensure treatment doesn't depend on parents' ability to pay for private services. "I think these are programs that need to be univers...