Defend Public Healthcare

The LHINs have contracted out $33 million of work to consultants.  Fitting with their recent turn towards criticising everything LHIN, even the provincial Conservatives are complaining. Money gobbled up by consultants would be better spent helping patients who are facing service cuts from cash-strapped hospitals, Conservative critic Norm Miller told the CBC .  "We see the LHINs as diverting money that should be going to front line health services: to procedures, to doctors, to nurses." It is a major problem that so much gets privatized or contracted out by the current government (and their minions). A lot of money is wasted.   But it's kind of hard to believe that Tim Hudak's Conservatives are going to do much better. This is the party that introduced compulsory contracting out in home care (now in its sixth year of suspension following repeated outbreaks of public anger) and privatized P3 hospitals, which practically breed consultants.  Indeed, the Ontario

An interesting blog piece by Jim Stanford concludes that "the higher... the out of pocket fees associated with medical care, the more individuals will cut back care when they are worried about their employment and economic security." Stanford is drawing on a new study entitled “The Economic Crisis and Medical Care Usage” which looked at the impact of the recession in five developed countries: the U.S., the UK, Germany, France, and Canada.  "Canada and the U.K. have the lowest user fees among the five countries surveyed; and in those countries, there was virtually no change under the recession in patterns of care utilization." The U.S., without a universal health care system (and much higher out of pocket fees), fared much worse.  When compared with Canadians, almost five times as many Americans reported reducing their use of routine medical services during the recent recession. dallan@cupe.ca

Local Liberal MPP Rick Bartolucci announced an extra $4.9 million for Sudbury Regional Hospital last week.  (The Liberal MPPs often seem to be able to free up their schedules for these cash announcements.)  In fact, most of the money ($4 million) is just the 1.5% base hospital funding increase that was announced five months ago in the provincial budget.  (Although there are now reports that some hospitals won't even get that.)   I have yet to hear anyone suggest that 1.5% will cover hospital inflation costs. So this isn't much of an announcement.  And the rest of the cash? Well there's some to make up for costs associated with last year's H1N1 epidemic ($60,000 -- whoppee) and $500,000 to cover extra operating costs associated with moving into a new facility.  More encouragingly, there was $400,000 for new neurosurgical procedures. We are now five months into the  province's fiscal year, and we are only now beginning to hear a little bit of information on thi

A couple of pics from the recent OCHU / CUPE Local 2875 rally to stop bed cuts at the Queensway Carleton Hospital in Ottawa. It was a great day. (And thanks for the pics to Louis and Local 1974 at Kingston General!)  Also -- the People's Healthcare Coalition, has collected more than 5,000 signatures calling for an investigation into what led to the decision to close the emergency rooms at Port Colborne and Fort Erie hospitals in Niagara. "We've had tremendous support so far," Coalition representative Pat Scholfield said, noting she collected several hundred signatures at the Market Square Friday morning. "Our goal is Queen's Park".

The Liberals continue to pay a heavy price for their health care sins.  And for the Progressive Conservatives (now leading in the latest poll), the LHINs are the gift that just keeps on giving.  The Erie St. Clair LHIN boss has now issued an apology for  making his, er, 'frank' remarks regarding Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak:  “Let’s be very clear — this guy is making this crap up and it’s false. I don’t think the public is stupid enough to believe him.” Notably, the 'apology' does not extend to Hudak, just to the local population.  (But for all the groveling, see the  What's New  section of the Erie St. Clair LHIN web site.) Adding to the joy of Progressive Conservatives everywhere, the chair of that very same LHIN claimed  "I don't think it's a lot of money" when asked about the $54,075 in per diem payments that she received last year (a 29% increase over the year before). The Chair, Mina Grossman-Ianni has donated $2,422 to t

As reported a few days ago, the Ontario government (quietly and) retroactively, revised the 2009-10 budget deficit downwards another $2 billion when it released the Public Accounts.  And as reported way back on July 12 (before any public mention of the current consultations with unions on a compensation freeze), Finance Minister Dwight Duncan had predicted that the 2009-10 deficit would decrease. But he also predicted  that the 2010-11 deficit estimate would be revised downwards too. “If you're starting off with a smaller deficit for the year ended, presumably if you follow the plan we've laid out, then the numbers will improve down the line — assuming no cataclysmic or unanticipated event”. While the revision for the 2009-10 deficit has now happened, the revision for the 2010-11 deficit has not.  Or at least not yet.  The deficit is now forecast to be higher this year (when the economy is growing) than it was last year (when the economy was shrinking).  I'm

While the McGuinty government is trying just about everything (short of bricking up the front doors) to stop health care from happening in hospitals, St. Francis Memorial Hospital in Barry's Bay is trying out a very interesting experiment that is expanding the range of local services available through the hospital. Instead of the usual attempts to close down hospital clinics, the hospital has opened a Community Care Access Centre (CCAC) nursing clinic.  The CCAC used to sponsor a health clinic, but although it was located right next door to the hospital, red tape and bureaucratic obstacles ate up hours of time for patients, doctors and nurses if any referrals were necessary.  The clinic closed in February, unable to sustain itself on low patient volumes. The pilot project in the hospital was launched on June 28 and is scheduled to wrap up on Sep. 12. Reportedly there will then be talks between the CCAC, the hospital, and the Champlain Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) to