What might happen if Tim Hudak gets his way and 100,000 public sector jobs are eliminated? Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data shows that fewer personnel in hospital nursing units is associated with more problems for patients. CIHI reports the number of personnel per patient (or, more exactly, "per weighted case" -- a measure which allows patients with different needs and conditions to be compared). CIHI also reports the number of "nursing sensitive adverse events" for surgical and medical hospital patients -- a measure of errors. While austerity has meant that there has been a drive to reduce the staff to patient ratio, there still remains significant variation. Some hospitals still have higher staffing ratios (if not for long). In total, there is data for 116 Ontario hospitals in 2010-11. For hospitals that have been able to maintain at least 7% more staff per patient than the average, there was an astonishing 19.6% fewer ...
Notes from Leftwords -- Doug Allan