Defend Public Healthcare

Federal Health Cash Transfers  ("CHT") to the Ontario government will rise 5.94% in 2016/17, or by $778 million. This, in itself, would pay for a 1.5% increase in Ontario health care funding even without a single extra penny from Ontario tax revenues.  This follows a $736 million increase (5.96%) to federal health care cash transfers to the province of Ontario for this year. Despite this, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) estimates that total health funding by the Ontario government is only going up by about $352 million this year -- or about 0.7%. This falls well short of aging, inflation, utilization, and population growth cost pressures and deepens  the trend in recent years to reduce health care and hospital funding in real terms.  So far, there are precious few signs that the government will reverse its policy of health care austerity in its upcoming 2016/17 budget. Likely, Ontario funding will fall far behind federal health care fund...

New Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI)   data   paints a picture of rapid change in nursing in Ontario, especially for Practical Nurses (called "RPNs" in Ontario and "LPNs" elsewhere) .   Here is a summary of the most interesting data from those charts concerning Ontario.     Note: The rapid increase in the Ontario RPN workforce (52.3% increase since 2005, and 5.6% in 2014) The rapidly increasing ratio of RPNs to RNs: Working RPNs are now at 38.1% of the number of working RNs in Ontario, up from only 27.3% only a decade ago While growth is much less marked, the RN workforce does continue to increase in Ontario – 9.2% since 2005 and 1.6% in 2014 alone The very rapid increase in RPNs who graduated from college within the last ten years The declining average age of RPNs and the increasing age of RNs The percentage of “full time” employment (as defined by the employer) increased for RNs but wa...

Registered Practical Nurses (RPNs) have made a modest come-back in Ontario hospitals, according to new   Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) data . After slipping back 1.8% in 2011, the RPN hospital workforce is up 6.3% in 2012, increasing from 13,126 to 13,954. Since 2008, the RPN hospital workforce has increased by 1,594, or 13%. The number of RPNs working in long-term care has increased even more. Between 2008 and 2012, the LTC RPN workforce increased 2,794, or 29%.   The total LTC RPN workforce now sits at 12,502, only 1,452 less than the number working in hospitals. Community care has seen a slightly smaller increase than LTC, but still quite significant.  The percentage of RPNs has increased 25% to 3,705 since 2008. The ratio of RPN  to 100,000 population has also increased from 212 per 100,000 in 2008 to 243 in 2012.  This has moved Ontario slightly closer to the national average - increasing our ratio from 95% of the national ...