Defend Public Healthcare

While the Ontario government claims that expanded home care services are the answer to hospital cuts, the reality on the ground is a little different. The Hamilton Spectator reports that "patching together services from the CCAC, as well as private home health care agencies, is becoming more the norm as families struggle to help ailing family members stay in the home." "If they don't get enough hours from the CCAC we top them up," Yvonne Griggs chief executive officer of Alert Best Nursing and Home Care Solutions reports.  Families pay almost $24 an hour for a personal support worker who does meal preparations and help clients, who are mostly elderly, with bathing, exercises, and walking. Even Progressive Conservative health critic Christine Elliott says this is creating a two-tier system where those who can afford more services get better care.   "What's happening in Hamilton is indicative of what's happening across the province. CCACs a

Ontario has 200 to 300 cases of C. Difficile a month in hospitals, and up to 20 per cent of those patients die, says Dr. Richard Schabas, Ontario's former chief medical officer of health. "That means we have 50 to 60 people a month dying in Ontario hospitals of this disease," said Schabas. St. Joseph's Hospital in Hamilton currently has a C. Difficile outbreak, with four patients dead.   In an earlier 2009 outbreak at the hospital, seven died. dallan@cupe.ca .

The privatized health care system in the United States is widely known for being extremely expensive. U.S. citizens are stuck paying (through taxes or by private payment) much more than any other developed country for health care --in fact about 50% more than the next most expensive (Norway), according to the  recently released Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report on health care spending (discussed here ).  But less well known is that, even though millions of U.S. citizens have no health care insurance, and millions more are covered only by the basic 'medicaid' system, public spending on health care is actually higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada's (largely public) health care system. CIHI reports that U.S. public spending on health care was $3,507 in 2008 (in U.S. dollars), while Canadian public spending was $2,863 (also in U.S. dollars).  That's 22.5% higher.  In fact U.S. public spending was the third highest among the 26 developed coun

With most of the focus on squeezing hospital budgets, it's good to see that some others are beginning to pick up on the rapid increase in public spending on drugs and doctors, a point OCHU has been making for some time.  Following the release of a health care spending report from the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) even Toronto's national newspaper (of the Establishment), the Globe and Mail, has raised concerns: Public spending on physicians has become the fastest-growing expense to Canada’s health-care system, a trend sparking growing calls for an overhaul to the payment system for doctors. The findings are contained in a new report released Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, which also found drug costs are eating up an increasing portion of Canada’s health-care budget. The report provides a stark glimpse of the future of Canada’s health-care system in a world where recessionary forces are squeezing hospital budgets but demand from

Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) has announced that it will spend $8.2 million on severance and early retirement packages. The hospital is cutting over 280 jobs as part of the provincial government's hospital funding squeeze. With another $600,000 spent on retraining, the hospital's 2010-11 deficit will double to $17.8 million. PRHC president and CEO Ken Tremblay notes that the provincial government has sometimes given funding to help with one-time costs such as early retirement and severance packages when a hospital is cutting its deficit. "We haven't turned it into an ask, but we've certainly declared that the pressures that we face are significant...We're hopeful but ... the fiscal recovery plan contemplates that we self-finance this restructuring and we'll see how this progresses with each successive meeting with the LHIN." To cut costs, the hospital is driving down the average length of stay at the hospital. Length of stay in the

Hotel-Dieu Grace Hospital in Windsor has received funding for an additional 14 beds to handle patients who no longer require acute care.   A separate unit will be set up where so-called alternative level of care, or ALC, patients can be treated. The initiative was approved by the Erie St. Clair Local Health Integration Network (LHIN). Pat Somers, Hotel-Dieu's vice-president of operations and chief nursing executive, said the new beds will be in place by January 2011 and remain at the hospital for at least a year. "We certainly welcome this help, but it's in no way going to solve our ALC issue," she said, noting that on Wednesday alone, 67 ALC patients were occupying acute care beds at Hotel-Dieu. Overall occupancy has been 99 per cent and at least three elective surgeries were cancelled due to a lack of beds. Leamington District Memorial Hospital, in the same LHIN, also received funding from the LHIN for 10 specially designated ALC patient beds. Earlier thi

In case anyone had any doubt about the government's plans for hospitals, Health Minister Deb Matthews has set it our repeatedly in the past few days in the Legislature: There are people in hospitals who do not want to be there, who should not be there, who could be better served elsewhere. We also know there are people in long-term-care homes who could, with the right combination of supports, get the care they need at home, in the community.... Too many people are in hospitals who do not need to be in hospitals if they had the right supports outside of hospitals.... People are staying in hospitals for far too long because the other supports are not available for them. That is the challenge that we have set ourselves to. The LHINs’ number one priority right now is reducing the number of people who are in hospitals who ought not to be, do not want to be in hospital, and are not getting the best possible care in hospitals... We are very much putting our focus on improving