Defend Public Healthcare

The Ontario Hospital Association: [1] strongly approves the budget’s announcement of a committee to address hospital working capital deficits (a major hospital issue); [2] expresses disappointment that base hospital funding was increased only 1.5% rather than 2%; [3] notes the Budget reports a 4.9% increase in total hospital ‘expense’; [4] states that many critical details about hospital funding (outside of the base funding increase) remain unknown; and [5] notes that the Budget did not provide sufficient detail about community health care funding to know if that sector will be able to take pressure off the hospital sector. (I might note that, previously, the government had promised 4.9% in 2010-11 for CCACs, which fund home care, but later withdrew this promise.) dallan@cupe.ca

The Sault Area Hospital (SAH) has just announced that it plans to reverse direction on its long planned closure of 7 mental health beds, with, it seems, the blessing of the LHIN / government. One might ask why the bed cuts at Cornwall, Brockville, Coburg (etc, etc.) cannot also be reversed. Especially as the SAH has serious deficit problems, with their deficit running at $11.5 million. (Here’s a quote from the SAH CEO Ron Gagnon: the SAH is "among the hospitals with some of the bigger problems in the province". ) Sault Hospital spokesperson Paluzzi says much has changed in terms of health care spending and, in particular, attitudes toward mental health: "I do believe there has been a general awareness of the need to address mental health issues”.  One might say the same about the need to protect small town hospital care. dallan@cupe.ca

If you can judge by the attempts of Liberal MPPs to divert local communities, the local campaigns to get the McGuinty government to stop cutting local hospital services are getting stronger. One novel response is from Jim Brownell, the Liberal MPP for Stormont Dundas and South Glengarry. He has begun to promote the idea of regionalizing hospital services, suggesting that hospitals should develop ‘areas of expertise’. Brownell, I believe, is on very thin ice with his constituents. It's hard to see how the hospital services for people in Cornwall, Alexandria, and Winchester are going to benefit. Likely, people from smaller communities will have to travel to larger centres (if they can). Perhaps the smaller hospitals might work out a niche for some specialized services which they could provide to a very large catchment area. But is that really what people want from their local hospital? I doubt it. dallan@cupe.ca

The Liberals have doled out about $70 million in recent weeks to tide over  a dozen or so hospitals facing deficits or other problems as the fiscal year ends.   Of course, many other communities have just been left to suck up service cuts.  (About 70 hospitals are in deficit and about 30 are forced to get cash advances from the government just to meet payroll.) The claim is that this  differential treatment is based on a scientific estimate of the merits of the claims by the various hospitals. And, heavens, it certainly has nothing to do with politics. So it is interesting to note that about half of the money went to communities that pushed back the hardest: Niagara and Brampton.   Cornwall also got about $5 M.  The local LHIN boss claims that a LHIN " team spent considerable time and energy reviewing the hospital 's clinical services, administration, and governance before concluding   that $6.6 million of additional annual operating funding was necessary." 

YouTube - Cornwall Hospital Rally -- March 2010 - Member speaks out This link is to a video of a pretty impassioned plea from what I think is a CUPE hospital member in Cornwall. She was speaking to me during a rally in front of the local MPPs office last week. We were protesting the cuts the Liberals are bringing to the hospital. A really good, completely off the cuff summary. I just wished I got my camera out earlier and got everything she was saying.  Does anyone know her name?? dallan@cupe.ca

Ontario proposes radical overhaul of hospital funding - The Globe and Mail Attached is today's Globe story on the proposed system of compulsory contracting for hospital services that the Star reported on last week. Here's something from the hardly surprising department: they are already paving the way for the idea that the new funding model will not save money. When a compulsory contracting model was introduced to home care, costs actually went up (to the market price, a government report rationalized). It also, of course, led to the wide-spread elimination of community-based not for profit organizations by for-profit corporations. The tail end of the Globe story indicates that Ontario has the second lowest hospital costs per capita across Canada (just slightly higher than Quebec). But why not mess with a winner?? Even the OHA says the system wouldn’t work for smaller communities; that makes me think the government may make some attempt to mitigate the destabilizi

Hospitals face push to compete for cash - Healthzone.ca In contrast to the previous pre-election period -- where the Liberals briefly made nice with public health care advocates -- they appear determined to go in the opposite direction in this pre-election period. On long term care, they want to 'review funding' so as to increase the flexibility of the operators (many of whom are for-profit). Other than the operators, who called for this? Indeed, there are widespread calls that they actually require operators to ensure minimum staffing standards, rather than just throw cash at them. Now, they are seriously investigating changing hospital funding to a market based price system, almost certainly opening the door to for-profit health care (and the threat for local communities that they will lose services with every new round of contracting). Even Mike Harris didn't dare give the corporations such a blessing (and local communities such a curse). Are we seeing a turning po