Defend Public Healthcare

Amidst all the hysteria over public sector wages (Tim Hudak has again demanded a wage freeze for public sector workers) it is useful to ask if public sector workers are taking more than their fair share of the economic growth in Ontario --or if they are falling behind. OCHU's comments to the Don Drummond Commission on public sector reform in Ontario, reviews just that question and finds that since 1995 hospital wages have risen less than half as quickly as the nominal growth in the economy. Wages are paid in "nominal dollars": they are not, unfortunately, protected against inflation.  So you might have a higher dollar wage than you did ten years ago, but if inflation has increased more rapidly than your wage, you are actually less well off.  As a result, the comparison between "nominal wages" and "nominal growth" (economic growth including inflation) is appropriate.  Are the nominal dollars we are paid keeping up with the nominal growth in the On

Nine of the province's 14 Community Care Access Centres (CCACs) are in deficit, the Chatham Daily News reports.  The local Erie St. Clair CCAC has asked for $5.2 million to tide it over this year.  The Local Health Integration Network (LHIN) is only handing over $1.5 million for now and refused its request to let its deficit run over to next year.   Gary Switzer, the LHIN CEO, said the CCAC may end up needing that money, "we just don't have enough data to determine what the real need is." But Betty Kuchta, the CEO of the Erie St. Clair CCAC,  replied that the CCAC may have to put hospital patients looking for home care on waiting lists.  Kuchta said waiting lists mean more frail, elderly people will stay in hospital when they could be cared for at home.   The costs of the province's 'Home First' program, designed to get patients out of hospital, are driving up CCAC costs across the province, it seems.   The 14 LHIN CEOs are meeting in January to

The Ontario Auditor General did a follow up to his 2009 report on health care acquired infections (HAIs) in long term care homes.  The good news is that all three of the homes he examined are now doing the twice daily cleanings of rooms for residents with C. Difficile infections. The bad news is that there is little movement on public reporting of HAIs in LTC. (OCHU helped win this in the hospital sector several years ago.)  Here is the AG's comment: The Ministry indicated that it had examined whether long-term-care homes should be required to publicly report patient-safety indicators such as HAI rates, as hospitals do. The Ministry noted that it had consulted with the long-term-care homes and other stakeholders and that there was a high level of satisfaction with the current extent of voluntary public reporting through Health Quality Ontario. Although Health Quality Ontario  does not provide public information on cases of C. difficile or hand-hygiene compliance among reside

Now that  bothersome provincial election is over with, the powers that be are talking more frankly about health care restructuring. There was, of course, the musings from Don Drummond (the Bay Street advisor to the provincial government on public sector reform) about health care "structural redesign".  But we have also gotten this call to strengthen the power of regional health authorities (either LHINs or a some new form of regional health authority) to make changes and consolidate.  Strengthen and empower regional healthcare - whatever the structure. Government should strengthen Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs), or their next iteration, by giving them the autonomy and discretionary funds - in short, the power - to do the work they are mandated to do. That means letting them shift funding to meet the particular needs of the population they serve. That means consolidating agencies, but with respect and assurance for local input. This was the first recommend

The conservative British newspaper, the Telegraph reports that British taxpayers now face paying five per cent more per year for hospitals built through public private partnerships (P3s) because the debts are linked to inflation.  P3s bring private corporations into hospital financing and support services. When the BBC program Panorama contacted 85 hospital trusts with PFI deals, it found 80 of them said they were having to make increased payments to the corporations due to inflation. The hospitals did not protect themselves against inflation, while the private P3 corporations did, it seems. Margaret Hodge, the Labour MP who now chairs the Public Accounts Committee, admitted to the BBC program: "We should have been much more transparent about the costs. I think we got the balance wrong." Richard Bacon, a Conservative member of the committee, said he thought taxpayers were being "ripped off". Ontario is going ahead with its own privatized P3 hospital spree, despi

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives (PCs) tried to amend the provincial government's Throne Speech yesterday with a legislated wage freeze for public sector workers. The NDP joined the Liberals to vote down the amendment 69 to 37. PC Leader Tim Hudak said  "I mean, we're simply asking public servants not to get a wage increase next year because families in the private sector are cutting back." In fact private sector wage settlements have been significantly higher than public sector wage settlements this year and last.   Naturally, the salaried class (including many PC-supporting bosses) are doing better -- this confirmed by recent Conference Board  and   AON  reports.   The Conference Board reports private sector salaried staff are doing especially well.   With inflation running at 2.7% in Ontario, a wage freeze would mean a significant reduction in real wages.  Hudak is broadening his attack on public sector workers.  During the election Hudak's fo

The Medical Director  of Saskatchewan's new for-profit surgical clinic has resigned.  It turns out he is ALSO the head of the Surgery Department at Regina General Hospital -- and has been for the last 11 years.  The brains behind the Health Region sees no conflict of interest. DUH! But having the Director wear two hats in this situation is an obvious conflict of interest, Suzanne Posyniak, a spokesperson for the Canadian Union of Public Employees, told the CBC .  . "How can you be responsible for ensuring that the hospital is doing the maximum number of surgeries in house, fully using all of its own infrastructure, and at the same time managing a for-profit clinic that needs business from the region to turn a profit?" Posyniak said. "You could tell this story to anyone and they would roll their eyes and think 'Duh … of course this is a problem,'" Posyniak said. With the Health Authority  denying a conflict of interest in such an obvious cas