Defend Public Healthcare

If ORNGE were a for-profit corporation, it would be of little note that the CEO was paid a measly $1.4 million.  That would put him in the little leagues of corporate big shots. Indeed, if it were a private corporation no one need ever know. Except that the CEO might like to brag about it.  The reason the public cares -- and is in fact outraged -- is because ORNGE was supposed to be a non-profit in the broader public sector.   Privatization of public services changes that salary calculus pretty quickly.   As part of a broader government move to privatize public services, ORNGE was given pretty much a free run to turn its work over to various private businesses. Indeed, the Deputy Minister of Health when ORNGE was set up, Ron Sapsford, suggested to a legislative committee this week, that the establishment of for-profit subsidiaries was no big deal. But that was how ORNGE  subverted real public oversight and accountability -- including over the salaries of its public

The editorialists at the Globe and Mail took up the ORNGE disaster today and even they are vexed by the "Public Private Byzantinism" that went on there. Naturally, however, they are more worried that the episode will stop government from pursuing similar initiatives in the future.  McGuinty and Co.  just have to do it better next time.   Unfortunately for this line of thought there has been many previous examples of similar problems happening over and over again when public services are commercialized and privatized.  For OCHU's reckoning of just the latest public-private scandals click here .   If it keeps going wrong, maybe it just is wrong. The public naturally wants a full accountability for how their money is spent and for how things could be improved.  But private interests naturally do not want to share how they do their business. None less so than private, corporate interests.  It's not good for business. The twain just don't meet. 

A Windsor hospital has been officially blocked from setting up hospital beds in a for-profit retirement home.  As noted in June , the Hotel Dieu Hospital was trying to create 18 "assess and restore" hospital beds in a for-profit retirement home in Amhertsburg.   The hitch for the Ministry of Health and LTC wasn't the for-profit nature of the home, it was that the home  didn't meet the building and fire code for hospital services.  This despite $300,000 in renovations by the retirement home and nine months of planning.    For the hospital project, the retirement home installed wheelchair-accessible bathrooms, the flooring was changed from carpet to vinyl, and a nursing station, common room and dining room were built. Apparently , the relatively new retirement home was built to a different building code than that required for hospitals and so cannot house hospital patients. The Ontario government has practically made moving work out of hospitals a new re

Health Minister Deb Matthews sticks to her guns alright, spinning a tale at yesterday's legislative committee  hearing suggesting she was unable to control ORNGE.  The ORNGE boss stonewalled and manipulated the numbers, she claimed. The shenanigans at ORNGE are shocking, but it takes some believing that the government could not have reined them in if they had wanted to.  The government was funding the outfit after all.  And in fact, when the stench got real bad, the government pulled them up pronto: getting rid of the CEO, the board, and all the private businesses they had set up. A letter  (unveiled yesterday by Frank Klees) from Emergency Health Services at the Ministry of Health and LTC in 2011 suggests government officials knew something was up, reportedly flagging some of the issues that later became headlines, including a lack of transparency. But there is no sign anybody did anything much about it within government. Moreover,even while the Minister suggests she was n

Pre-cooked food will no longer be trucked in to Alberta's smaller long term care homes.   Alberta Health Services shut down the kitchens in LTC homes with fewer than 125 beds two years ago to cut costs, the  Calgary Herald   reports. Meals were instead prepared off-site (sometimes outside the province) often using "flash freezing" techniques. But complaints about  the taste and nutritional value of the food have spurred the Health Minister to order the  Alberta Heath Services to serve home-cooked menu items in all of its 73 long-term care facilities by the end of this year to improve the taste, appearance and variety of food. The Health Minister said r esidents and seniors advocacy groups have "told us clearly that preparing food off-site and reheating it does not meet expectations . . . and we are taking actions to change that".   Alberta Health Services plans to have a strategy by October  for all facilities. The problems are much the same in Ontario

It was less than a year ago that Dalton McGuinty asserted that it was unwise to finagle with the interest arbitration system. How things have changed. As noted in June , the government introduced legislation in the recent Budget Bill to make interest arbitration more employer-friendly.  That however failed miserably. But the Liberals are determined to dig in on this one.  They have promised to bring back new legislation in the fall. Despite McGuinty's earlier wisdom on this issue, they are indeed determined to finagle. Both the NDP and the Progressive Conservatives opposed the interest arbitration changes, the former because of the bias the legislation introduced, and the latter because the bias did not go far enough (although causing trouble for the Liberals was probably a factor as well). Now the Ontario Association of Police Services Boards says it has received assurances from the Ministry of Labour that it will be consulted as the new legislation concerning interest

Health Minister Deb Matthews is sticking to her  line to explain the $24.7 million in cuts planned for Hamilton area hospitals this year. " We have to rebalance our health care system so we've got more money invested in home care and community based care.  Too many people are in hospital when they don't need to be in hospital and they could be cared for at home if the resources were there," Matthews told the Hamilton Spectator .    Hamilton Health Sciences is shaving $15 million while St. Joe's is looking to cut $7.5 million.  Joseph Brant hospital in Burlington is looking to save $2.2 million.  The Spec lays out the following cuts planned for Hamilton Health Sciences: "$1 million in service cuts to operating rooms, the west-end urgent care centre and to musculoskeletal outpatient physiotherapy; $1 million to delay robotic dispensing of medications; $2.9 million shaved from administration and support such as reducing costs of contracts; $0.8 million