Defend Public Healthcare

A great new short video for the September 13 Ontario Health Coalition rally at Queen's Park, produced by the Ontario Public Service Employees Union  (and briefly featuring OCHU's Louis Rodrigues).  Please spread it around! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCaQYjShAJo

Here are some of the comments at a Health Coalition town hall meeting earlier this week about the problems at the Niagara Health System hospitals (as reported by the Welland Tribune ): John Degazio, a former housekeeping staff member at Welland hospital, recalled trying to draw attention to problems with the cleaning of hospital rooms after staffing levels were severely cut in the early 2000s. He said he recalled seeing bed linens that were supposed to be clean, with blood and feces stains on them. "At the end of it all, I was forced to leave (my job) for bringing up stuff that was contrary to people's health," he said. Retired nurse Nancy Gladman said more than a decade ago, before cuts, there were enough beds to isolate patients with potentially contagious diseases. "It's just a mess," Gladman said. "Really, I wouldn't advise anyone to use any hospital in Niagara run by the NHS." Registered nurse Cindy Forster, a Welland region...

 An  Ontario Health Coalition report  released today finds that Ontario has the fewest hospital beds per person of all provinces in Canada. The result is serious hospital overcrowding that puts patients at risk.  “Ontario’s hospital occupancy levels are at untenable levels, far above other comparable jurisdictions. For patients, this means a higher risk of hospital infections, cancelled surgeries, backlogged ERs, not enough staff, and patients waiting on stretchers for hours or even days,” said Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “Yet Ontario has not done a systematic study to assess hospital occupancy and determine the appropriate number of hospital beds needed.” “Part of the solution is to create a cross-province plan to enhance home care and long term care to meet community need. But an important part of the solution also is for Ontario’s government to restore hospital bed capacity with sufficient funding and evidence-based targets to redu...

Most citizens of Peterborough and the surrounding area have been concerned for some time that huge staffing cuts at the hospital will erode patient care. Peterborough Health Coalition (PHC) has now opened a secure mailbox in the lobby of City Hall to collect confidential, accurate examples of declining care.  The Coalition plans to build a case for improvement. This mail box service was apporved by City Council last August. The collection of information will be the sole responsibility of PHC, and not of the City, and will be kept confidential until the authors specifically agree to release the examples for use by PHC on their behalf. The Coalition hopes that the documentation of declining care will help them build their case for adequate staffing at the local hospital. The  media will be kept informed. Roy Brady, Chairperson, Peterborough Health Coalition can be contacted at 705-745-2446.  A editorial dealing with this initiative by the Pete...

The Ontario Health Coalition is hosting a Health Action Assembly and Conference on the sustainability of health care. The Assembly and conference take place Saturday November 6th and Sunday November 7th, 2010 at the Bond Place Hotel, 55 Dundas St. E., Toronto. The OHC, as community-labour coalition, plays a vital role defending public health care (and public hospitals).  The Assembly and conference will be a great way for local union activists to learn more about the challenges to public hospital services and the community campaigns that are so necessary to defend them.  Please click here  to learn more and to register for the assembly and conference. dallan@cupe.ca

CUPE Local 1590 and the Scarborough Health Coalition sponsored a great public meeting Thursday on bed and service cuts at Providence Healthcare hospital.  Local 1590 president Kevin Tyrell spoke to the crowd about the plan to shut down Providence hospital beds over the next four years, taking beds out through a program called "Transformation by Design".   The idea here is that in turn each hospital ward is closed down and renovated.  But when each ward is reopened, it has fewer beds! The hospital has already cut $2 million and is still $2.1 million in deficit.  Kevin and others at the public meeting spoke of the great job the hospital has done in the past and fears that good quality care will become a thing of the past as beds are chopped.  As usual, this is being done with little or no public consultation by the government or the LHIN.  Also as usual, the claim is that better home care will replace hospital...

Starting September 21, the Ontario Health Coalition  (OHC) is sponsoring summits in six cities around Ontario dealing with significant changes proposed for Ontario’s hospitals. The provincial government is moving towards a type of fee-for-service hospital funding (usually referred to by the government as "patient based funding", and by critics as "price based funding").   This is a potentially revolutionary change. The OHC notes that this funding system will encourage: - Major hospital restructuring and cuts - Centralization of services into fewer towns & pressure on the workforce - A host of new administrative costs - The end of community hospitals as we know them This system has already been tried in the United Kingdom. There, it resulted in: - Near-bankruptcies in large hospitals - ballooning administrative costs - instability - privatization - major cuts - demoralized staff - chaotic health planning and the undermining of t...