Defend Public Healthcare

The total number of Niagara hospital beds (excluding West Lincoln hospital) was 1,315 in 1995-96 (this includes 149 at the former Hotel Dieu general hospital and 124 at the Shaver which became the Dieu).   Facility Acute Psychiatry Rehabilitation Chronic 1995/96 1997/98 1995/96 1997/98 1995/96 1997/98 1995/96 1997/98 Niagara-on-the-Lake 18 9 - - - - 20 11 Douglas Memorial 50 39 - - - - 25 25 Port Colborne General 50 36 - - - - 30 24 Shaver - - - - 22 22 102 102 West Lincoln Memorial 62 45 - - - - 16 16 Welland County General 159 141 16 16 - - 139 77 Greater Niagara General 173 173 29 29 - - 48 48 H ô tel Dieu 149 119 - - - - St. Catharines General 223 201 26 26 - - 36 36 Total 884 763 71 71 22 22 416 339 Now, there  are  only 926 beds: 787 at Niagara Healt

A British firm dealing with business restructurings and bankruptcies reports that UK private sector insolvencies in the health and social services sector are up 49% in the first half of 2011.  The spectacular fall from grace of British nursing home provider Southern Cross illustrated a sector with endemic problems, left ravaged by austerity cuts in public expenditure, MCR partner Sarah Bell reports . "Reduced Local Authority fees, rising rents, a growing focus on alternative methods of care, an uncertain regulatory environment and increased operating costs are just some of the factors that have contributed towards the perfect storm that has landed in the care homes sector." Worse, care is threatened:  "The miscalculations made by some indebted operators left them with little option but to reduce investment in order to remain solvent. The human cost of this failure is palpable and illustrates the fundamental flaw in the private model: private operators looking

Commenting on a Niagara superbug rally Wednesday, the Ontario Hospital Association CEO complained  that unions and politicians were being unhelpful, "basically turning  it into a panic situation".   Hmm -- I don't get a sense of panic -- just a bona-fide concern in the community about the outbreak and the fact that the community wasn't informed about deaths of patients infected with C. Difficile at two sites until long after they occurred. I think the hospitals should accept that is a legitimate feeling in the community and encourage government to require standardized reports.  Short of that, I think there is going to be more hard feelings in other communities.   Consider this: Allison McGeer, director of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital,  says  a new virulent strain of C. Difficile detected only in the past few years will kill 250 people in Ontario this year — about 10 times as many as a decade ago. The  Globe and Mail   reports  that the

The latest report ( May 2011 ) on the incidence of C. Difficile in Ontario hospitals shows that the disease is more common than any time since September 2008, one month after the province began to publicly report the data. In response to an earlier OCHU campaign demanding action on superbugs, a government cabinet minister claimed  in March that superbug rates were going down.  I'm not sure if they are still claiming that or not... Of course, the public reports of C. Difficile outbreaks skyrocketed in June and July, not May -- so it will be interesting to see the reports for those months.   More on whether we should all just relax and let these superbug problems pass us by tomorrow.  

The   Welland Tribune   reports that the Niagara Health System hospital is "struggling with a lack of patient beds as it tries to isolate patients with the infectious C. Difficile disease."  Nevertheless, t he Niagara Health System has no plans of reopening recently closed  hospital  beds to help deal with its current superbug outbreaks.    Justifying, this position, the NHS interim CEO Sue Matthews said  "We will not be going and knocking on the Ministry (of Health and Long-Term Care's) door asking for more money, more money. We have lots of tough decisions that obviously have been made and need to be made. We will continue to work within our finances that we have." The NHS has closed many  hospital  beds through the implementation of its so-called " hospital  improvement plan". Ontario  Hospitals, under intense funding pressure, closed over 600 beds in 2010. As reported in an earlier note , the British Medical Association has identified high

The City of Hamilton has doled out another $833,000 for more ambulances and paramedics to deal with a chronic ambulance shortage on the streets. EMS response times have crept up to almost a minute and a half over the provincial standard.  "Code zeroes" (when there is no ambulance available to respond to a 911 call) are on track to record annual levels, with over 100 so far this year. The ambulance service recorded fewer than 20 Code Zeroes in 2006. Last year, the EMS dealt with more than 90. Mario Posteraro, president of Local 256 of the Ontario Public Services Employees Union, said the additional resources won’t be enough to fix the problem. “I don’t think it will make a significant enough impact,” he said. Since 2007, politicians have been providing nothing more than “band-aid” solutions to a complex problem, he said. Councillor Brad Clark said the city doesn’t have any control over the root causes of Code Zeroes such as hospital ambulance offload delays caused by

Tomorrow, a health care rally will be held at 3 pm outside the Greater Niagara General Hospital.  The theme is "Residents have a right to know!"  (Notice for the rally is below.) The rally follows the long delay in the announcement that  patients had died with the infectious superbug C. Difficile, creating what has become a major national new story. The hospital has tried to justify the long delay in telling the community of the deaths at the Welland and Greater Niagara hospitals because an 'outbreak' had not been declared.  But the outbreak issue is beside the point. It is actually quite tricky to determine when an 'outbreak' has occurred.  In any case, superbugs are in our hospitals all the time, ‘outbreak’ declared or not.  Incredibly, this is sometimes used as an excuse NOT to report superbug associated deaths. To my mind, it is in fact all the more reason to report the facts to the public.   Past campaigns by OCHU and others forced government