Defend Public Healthcare

Georgian Bay General Hospital (with facilities in the small towns of Midland and Penetang) is losing services. Recently, Hospital CEO Paul Heinrich told local media what people can expect as the hospital moves forward with its 20-year master plan announced two weeks ago. "We knew we had to make changes because of the costs involved and the impact on our budget," said Heinrich. "We will be continuing to change the service mix at GBGH in response to more regionally-based health system design and changes to technology and patient needs." "For example, in the future, we will likely cease to provide inpatient paediatrics because we do not have the critical mass, expertise and volume that other centres do." "The divestment of the diabetes education program to the Family Health Team was a very successful project," he added. "The outpatient lab service is still to be operated by the hospital...We investigated the possibility of divesting

Sodexho  reached   a $20 million settlement with the Attorney General of the state of New York in July for overcharging 21 school districts and the state university for food services.  "This company cut sweetheart deals with suppliers and then denied taxpayer-supported schools the benefits," Attorney General Cuomo said in a statement . Now, Congresswoman Rosa DeLaura has asked the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to begin an investigation by the Officer of the Inspector General and to alert state education and agriculture agencies to the $20 million settlement.  Congresswoman DeLaura states: Attorney General Cuomo's investigation revealed that it is common practice within the food service industry for providers like Sodexo to leverage their size and market dominance to obtain rebates from vendors that supply food products, equipment and supplies without passing those savings onto local school districts - despite federal and state laws and local contra

Under the title of "Improving ER Services In Rural And Northern Ontario," the provincial government has asked "a group of leading health care experts to examine and develop recommendations for improving emergency services in small and rural communities." The new "Emergency Room Task Force" will develop recommendations for emergency rooms in rural and northern areas to adapt to staffing challenges. The government notes:  "minor staffing challenges -- a doctor's unforeseen family emergency or a nurse's unexpected illness, for example -- can impact a hospital's emergency services." The Task Force is certainly high powered: six of the fourteen panel members are either Ministry or LHIN leaders, including two Assistant Deputy Ministers.  The Task Force is supposed to submit a final report to the government in the spring. The government claims that "there have been no unplanned ER closures in Ontario since 2003." What it doe

A U.S. jury slammed the owners of a  major U.S. nursing home with a $677 million verdict this past summer, sending shock waves through the industry. A class action lawsuit  on behalf of 32,000 nursing home residents blamed staff shortages for the misery encountered by the residents — echoing a common complaint across the country that for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with profits rather than residents. Critics charge that many companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices after Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree. "The major problem for most nursing homes in California and in the nation is staffing," said Pat McGinnis, executive director and founder of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. On July 6, the Humboldt County jury found that Skilled Healthcare on numerous occasions violated state regulations requiring it to keep a minimum number of nurses on duty at its 22 homes in the state. The lawsu

Hospital 'shared service corporations' are popping up all across Ontario to take over support services for Ontario hospitals.  Most of these are not-for-profit corporations owned by the area hospitals.  Sometimes the shared service corporation delivers the hospital support service, other times it contracts the service out for the hospital to a 3rd party.  The main focus to date for the hospital shared service corporations  has been on the supply chain and back office services. The process has gotten a lot of cash support from the Ontario Ministry of Finance and the government has bragged about it as one of the main ways it is (allegedly) making  the public sector more efficient.  It's part of the centralization of hospital services. The shared services corporations are now slowly increasing their reach into other areas of hospital work. The latest development is that COPHA (a fairly new shared services corporation for hospitals in central Ontario) has overseen the con

As part of ongoing provincial cutbacks, the Niagara Health System hospital closed the Emergency Departments (EDs) in two of its smaller sites last year, converting them into Urgent Care Centres (UCCs).  The hospital now recognizes that it "has been experiencing serious issues with off load delays" at its three remaining EDs despite a policy for ambulances to bring at least some patients to the converted UCCs (and the maintenance of similar patient volumes at the UCCs).  Nevertheless, sicker patients are now being brought to the EDs. The hospital notes: At the same time while our volumes in the Emergency Departments in Welland and Niagara Falls have remained relatively stable the acuity level of the patients presenting are higher. As the acuity increases the resources required to manage these patients expands, resulting in more diagnostic testing and physician assessments. This causes an increase in the “time in the ED” hence increases congestion, crowding and potential

Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor is proposing a special unit to handle the Alternate Level of Care (ALC) patients. (These are patients no longer receiving acute or complex continuing care.) The hospital is applying to the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network for an ALC unit as a short-term fix to its overcrowding problem. The unit would provide dedicated beds for ALC patients. Pat Somers, senior vice-president of patient services and chief nursing executive says the backlog of ALC patients creates "significant pressure for our system." and the "gridlock" hasn't cleared with flu season on the horizon.  "Our concern is that we will not be able to respond in the nimble manner that we would like." As elsewhere, this is leading to backlogs in the hospital, starting with long waits in the Emergency Room. Like most Ontario hospitals, bed occupancy is dangerously high at the Grace -- 98%.  The hospital's plans call for 90 per cent o