Defend Public Healthcare

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. 

Lost time injury (LTI) claims for workers compensation by health care support workers have shot up in the last few years, even before COVID-19.     For many years, claims were in the 2,500 range, before starting an upward track in 2014, rising to 4,271 in 2019, just before COVID-19 hit.  That is about a 60% increase.   Other major occupations in health care saw the number of claims remain basically flat between 2002 and 2019 (with things changing in 2020, as we shall see).    By 2019, health care support workers had the second most workplace lost time injury claims of any occupation reported by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) - only motor vehicle and transit drivers had more, with 4,901 in 2019. In 2002, health care support workers had only the eighth highest number of LTI claims. So things have changed. The increase in injury claims among health care support workers is more remarkable as WSIB has been on a tear to reduce lost time injury benefit claims – with total