Defend Public Healthcare

Hewitt and Associates, a corporation which advises employers on insured benefits, estimates that Ontario’s proposed changes regarding generic drugs will mean Ontario employers will see prescription drug plan costs drop by approximately 8% immediately, and by 16% within two years, with additional savings available depending on benefit plan design. Unfortunately, there are reports that the Liberals may cave-in and provide more (of our) cash to the pharmacy corporations.  In the last round of drug reform (with Bill 102 in 2006), the then Health Minister, Geroge Smitherman, did just that -- he caved in to demands from the brand name drug companies.  Not surprisingly, the brand name pharamceutical corporations will also be untouched by these latest reforms -- despite the fact that 75% of government drug money goes for their products and they are making a very handsome 25% profit rate. The result of the last cave in?  Drug spending by the Ontario government went up 21.8% in just 3 year

BC is introducing a system of price-based funding for specific hospital procedures.  It sounds similar to the model that Ontario plans to introduce. The BC Health Minister now admits their model could see private clinics competing with hospitals to provide publicly funded surgeries.  He claims they will ‘be a pretty small piece of the pie’.  CUPE has long claimed price based funding would open doors to privatization -- even while the Ontario government disimissed such concerns. The for-profits are delighted by the BC Minister's announcement. BC is aiming to have 20% of acute services paid for by price based funding in 2012-3.   While Ontario is not moving as fast (an election is upcoming, after all), there are reports that the province is aiming for 40% of services funded through price-based funding. And like BC, Ontario is starting the new funding system with the bigger hospitals dallan@cupe.ca

Lakridge CEO Kevin Empey says the public focus at a LHIN meeting last November "embarrassed" the government into providing a significant funding increase. Lakridge was among four hospitals in this LHIN's region that received a total of $10 million.  Empey said he understood MPPs whose constituents use Lakeridge facilities lobbied for the financial support. Elsewhere, other Liberal MPPs have been active. MPP Rick Bartolucci announced in December the funding of a whack of new Sudbury Regional Hospital convalescent beds (http://www.rickbartolucci.com/pressreleases.aspx?id=157 ) . The funding of new convalescent beds at Sudbury Regional Hospital helped deal with the overflow of hospital patients in Sudbury. Other solutions will be slower and "much harder" according to one doctor involved in the issue. In contrast, other hosptials are cutting  hospital beds with the approval of their local Liberal MPP.  Cornwall's Jim Brownell and Northumberland's Lou R

A while back I noted that the Health Minister Deb Matthews suggested the hosptial cuts were ok, because there was so much more care in the community.  Here's some recent comments from the Toronto Star on this issue: But the community sector has not been adequately funded to manage higher demand, said Margaret Mottershead, chief executive of the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres. And demand is expected to rise significantly as the health system tries to get a handle on what's known as the "ALC problem." ALC refers to an alternative level of care, required by 5,000 patients in Ontario, mostly frail, elderly people who are in hospital even though they don't need to be. They are waiting to be sent back to their homes with visiting home-care support, into long-term care homes or into assisted living environments, such as a seniors' apartment complex with nearby personal support workers. Mottershead says community care access centres h

Health Minister Matthews claims that the 1.5% 'increase' in hospital funding means that hosptial cuts are not necesary. I guess all the bed cuts, elimination of services, and layoff notices are imaginary. Prediction: unless there is more money found, neither Matthews, the LHINs, nor the hosptials will spend much time reversing cutbacks. The real question is: how much more trouble will this funding level bring?  And what is in the non-base hosptial funding increases? Funding hike could save jobs London News London Free Press dallan@cupe.ca

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