Defend Public Healthcare

The Ontario government likes to suggest that the planned annual 4% nominal increase in "home and community care" funding will offset their cuts to hospital services and squeeze on long term care beds. But it's not totally clear that this funding will offset cost pressures on home and community care arising from the rapid growth in the elder population -- never mind growth in the entire population,  never mind inflation, never mind unmet home care needs, never mind hospital cuts, never mind the squeeze on long term care beds. The Ontario Ministry of Finance estimates that those aged 85 and over will increase 18.8% in the four years from 2012 to 2016. That equals a 4.4% annual average increase. The 90 and over portion of that group will increase much more: 35.1%. That's almost 8% per year. This is relevant to the cost pressures on home care as this age group requires an awful  lot of home care. A December 2012 Statistics Canada report indicates that 54

More hospital savings . Joanna Frketich reports Hamilton Health Sciences needs to find $20 million to $25 million in savings, while Hamilton St. Joseph's is cutting $10 million to $12 million, and Burlington's Joseph Brant must cut $4 million.   In total, $34 to $41 million in cuts for Hamilton area hospitals.    That is in the range of 1.7% to 2.7% of the hospitals' budgets.  This is on top of earlier cuts.  Over the past year the three hospitals found $30 million in savings.  The government would no doubt focus on the increase in home care funding of $8.7 million -- but even that funding also had to cover Niagara, Haldimand and Brant. It also barely covers the cost pressures of inflation, aging, and population growth, never mind hospital cuts and the squeeze on new long term care beds. Beatrice Fantoni reports Windsor Regional is laying off 34 Registered Nurses after the province put off over six years its promise to open 58 complex continuing care and reh

In December, it was predicted that outgoing finance minister Dwight Duncan would   reduce his deficit forecast just before his departure (for Bay Street).  Duncan had somehow estimated in his fall economic statement that the 2012-3 deficit would be  $14.4 billion, i.e. higher than the 2011-12 deficit  -- and even higher than the 2010-11 deficit! Sure enough, Duncan lopped another $2.5 billion off the deficit in January. In 2010, the McGuinty / Duncan government started its campaign for a wage freeze in the provincial public sector, citing the state of the public books.  At that time they had estimated deficits totaling $74.2 billion from 2009/10-2012/3. Deficit (in billions of dollars) 2009–10 2010–11 2011–12 2012–13 Total 2010 Budget 21.3 19.7 17.3 15.9 74.2 2013 January 19.3 14 13 11.9 58.2 Reduction in Deficit 2 5.7 4.3 4.0 16.0 However, these proved unrealistic -- the act

Premier designate Kathleen Wynne has strongly suggested that hospital cutbacks will continue  Of the cuts just announced at the Ottawa Hospital, Wynne says the government is "transforming the health-care system, so services that need to be delivered in a hospital setting are delivered in a hospital setting, but services that don't are delivered elsewhere....It means there will be alterations in the health institutions in our cities and our towns." One would hardly know she is referring to the cut of 290 jobs (and about $31 million) at the Ottawa Hospital.  The Ottawa cuts are just the latest in a spate of cutback announcements in the last few weeks.  Bluewater Health in the Sarnia area is looking to cut $5 million by cutting staff, reducing the number of nurses in its cardiac care unit, changing the bedside staffing model, and merging its critical care units.  The Niagara Health System has recently unveiled a partial plan to deal with its $13 million d

The government's new senior's "action plan" discussed in the last post follows on from Dr. Samir K. Sinha’s report   for the government “Living Longer Living Well”.  Sinha's report is labelled only as “Highlights and Key Recommendations”.   A “ full report will present considerably more detailed findings and recommendations that will enable the government to expand upon and provide some specific means of implementing the themes and recommendations set out in this Highlights and Key Recommendations document.” So there may be more to come.   The "Highlights" report makes numerous recommendations in 13 areas.  Indeed the recommendations are stated in a distinctly vague way.  Moreover, they generally follow the well tread path in existing government policy.    Despite some recognition that the elderly population is growing very rapidly,  there is no recommendation for expanded LTC or hospital services and no call for new funding.     Significan

The Ontario government’s 26 page Action Plan for Seniors  came out yesterday.  There’s not much to it.  About half of the report simply rehashes what is already in place. To the good, they at least formally recognize that the elderly population is expanding rapidly and that this is going to require an   “overarching plan” that  (absent their reforms) is going to cost a lot of cash. (For more information on the tsunami we are facing in long-term care, and how far short we are falling, click here , here , and here .) To the bad, their reforms are pipsqueak-sized compared to the problem at hand. Perhaps the biggest proposal here is their plan to designate 250 beds in long-term care as ‘assess and restore’ beds.   Essentially this means opening hospital beds in long term care facilities.  Instead of using long-term care to provide long-term residential care, they want to use long-term care to provide short- term care (providing curative treatment, as in the hospitals).   

As promised at the OCHU bargaining conference last week, click here for the presentation on health care and hospital funding.