Defend Public Healthcare

A news  report  suggests an ominous interpretation of  the rather vague promise in the Ontario Progressive Conservative election platform  to “introduce paycheque protection so union members are not forced to pay fees towards political causes they don’t support.”  This article claims they are in fact pledging “to outlaw the use o f dues money for political or non-negotiating purposes by unions, unless each individual union member agrees .”   As not everyone even agrees that ice cream taste goods, this policy would make it illegal for unions to voice opinions on anything that wasn't dealing with negotiations. Tiny minorities could block unions from speaking out.   Well most of this web site is not about bargaining issues.  So would the PCs would want me to tear it up until all 240,000 CUPE members in Ontario approve everything in it? When the reporter asked  PC Labour Critic Randy Hillier  if the PC's will outlaw business-financed political campaigns, such as past on

A new World Health Organization (WHO) study ( Report on the Burden of Endemic Health Care Associated Infection Worldwide: Clean Care is Safer Care )    indicates that Canada has a high rate of Health Care Acquired Infections (HCAIs) compared to other developed countries.   The study reports that Canada’s HAI incidence is 11.6%.  O f the world’s economically advanced economies, only New Zealand reported a higher rate at 12% . (Notably, New Zealand also has very few hospital beds per capita.)  While Canada has a rate of 11.6% the HCAI prevalence in high income countries is 7.6%:   “According to published national or multicentre studies, pooled HCAI prevalence in mixed patient populations was 7.6% in high-income countries ...The estimated HCAI incidence rate in the USA was 4.5% in 2002, corresponding to 9 3 infections per 1000 patient-days and 1 7 million affected patients”   The Canadian rate is more than 50% higher than the rate reported for high income countries.   While HCAI rates

As noted earlier , Britain's largest nursing home chain, Southern Cross is going kaput, and despite all the chatter from government proponents and business about how such public private partnerships (P3s) transfer risk from the public to the private, it is the most vulnerable members of the public who are taking it on the chin.     Some useful comments from Max Pemberton of Britain's leading (and normally conservative) newspaper  The Telegraph on how this privatization deal transferred the risk to the elderly and most vulnerable:  While the Government insists that no residents will end up homeless as a result of Southern Cross’s collapse, ministers have been unable to give assurances that residents will not have to be placed elsewhere. There is a wealth of research to show that moving individuals who are settled in nursing homes has a severe impact on their well-being. There is a clear correlation between such upheaval and an increase in morbidity and mortality. There i

 An  Ontario Health Coalition report  released today finds that Ontario has the fewest hospital beds per person of all provinces in Canada. The result is serious hospital overcrowding that puts patients at risk.  “Ontario’s hospital occupancy levels are at untenable levels, far above other comparable jurisdictions. For patients, this means a higher risk of hospital infections, cancelled surgeries, backlogged ERs, not enough staff, and patients waiting on stretchers for hours or even days,” said Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “Yet Ontario has not done a systematic study to assess hospital occupancy and determine the appropriate number of hospital beds needed.” “Part of the solution is to create a cross-province plan to enhance home care and long term care to meet community need. But an important part of the solution also is for Ontario’s government to restore hospital bed capacity with sufficient funding and evidence-based targets to reduce hospital overcro

Dr Michael Phillips, hospital epidemiologist at New York University Langone Medical Center tells Infection Control Today about the role of environmental contamination in the transmission of hospital acquired infections.   To respond to this issue,  he stresses the importance of "incorporating environmental services into the patient care unit team. ... This type of collaboration enhances problem solving – and reduces infections."   He adds that environmental services "are a critical member of the team" and sets out a number of ways that collaboration and communication between infection control specialists and environmental services can be enhanced.  This sounds like common sense.  But can you hope to achieve this if hospital housekeeping services are contracted out?   A separate for-profit business will not want to let its staff receive direction from the hospital or its staff -- they will want to retain control to control costs (and keep their profit

I was surprised to see that Ontario has fewer acute care beds per capita than any country in the    Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development  (OECD) so I went back and looked at the total number of hospital beds per capita (i.e. not just acute care beds, but also other sorts of hospital beds:  rehabilitation, complex continuing care, and psychiatric beds).   The results, however, are much the same.    Figures in the new  health care report from the  OECD  indicate that the average number of hospital beds per capita of its 34 member countries averaged 5.14 beds per 1,000 population in 2008.   Canada is a member of the OECD and it has an average well below the OECD rate: 3.3 beds per thousand population in 2008, the last year the OECD reports for Canada.  That's about 64% of the 2008 OECD average.  The OECD average went up a little in 2009  to 5.3 beds per thousand:  compared to that, the Canadian average falls to 62%. Ontario Lower Ontario, however, is

Some comments from Dr. Allison McGeer, infectious disease expert at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, for the St. Catharines Standard :   "Prevention isn't inexpensive" ....There is also a deeper philosophical problem with public health care spending policies... It's possible to hire more cleaners, more supervisors and build better hospitals that will reduce infection rates and prevent outbreaks. But that doesn't give politicians anything tangible to grasp. The question will inevitably be asked: "Why are we spending so much money on prevention if infection rates are low?" " Yet we know outbreaks cost us more than prevention ," McGeer said. "But we have to be willing to make the investment." Brantford General Hospital estimates  "it can cost the hospital from $30,000 to $50,000 to treat a case of C. difficile, what with the protocols kicking into gear, heightened cleaning and patient transfers." Dr. Doug Sider,