Sudbury hospital officials expect the shortage of hospital beds in the city will force 4 surgeries a day to be cancelled. Thirty have been cancelled this month. Dr. David Boyle, the hospital’s medical director of surgical services told the CBC he’s frustrated because his department has toiled away at reducing
Continue readingAuthor: Doug Allan
Defending Public Healthcare: Ontario hospitals oppose wage cap
It’s not often that Ontario hospitals express opposition to government policy publicly. But the government’s new cap on public sector executive pay of $418,000 (annually) has caused them to come out and release a public statement expressing their “extreme disappointment.” “This is another example of the Government of Ontario and
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: PC plan a threat to small town Ontario?
The Progressive Conservatives (PCs) plan to turn health care funding responsibilities over to 30 to 40 hospitals. These “hub” hospitals would be licensed to move money from one provider in the area to another. This will leave the other 120 or so hospitals beholden to the hub hospitals for funding.
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberals threaten to bring back interest arbitration legislation
A senior Liberal official has said the government will bring back the interest arbitration legislation that was defeated when the government brought in its Budget bill earlier this year. “We’ll be taking action and reintroducing the sections of the budget bill that Hudak instructed his party’s members to vote against,
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Private insurance: no solution for long-term care
As part of its turn from care in facilities, the Ontario government has let the wait lists long-term care facilities explode. This problem has been around for several years now, and there is little sign the government intends to remedy the problem. Instead they simply talk about keeping people
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Is the Ontario government fiscal crisis phony?
The Ontario government claimed in July that the first year of its so-called “compensation freeze” would save $1.4 billion. It now claims that the province’s results for the 2011-12 fiscal year were $3.3 billion ahead of the plan projected in the 2011 Budget. This, the government says, will result in
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Liberal threat to broader public sector remains vague
Last week Dalton McGuinty hinted that he would bring in legislation affecting collective bargaining across the public sector and now the Globe and Mail reports the government “plans to introduce legislation that would freeze wages for all workers who bargain collectively in the public sector.” The government has been reasonably
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Insurance giants look for long-term care business
Giant insurance corporations are pushing into long-term care. As part of its austerity song book, the Ontario government has pretended that there is no need to expand long-term care, complex continuing care, rehabilitative care, and other forms of care. If anything needs aren’t met, it can all be solved , this
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: PCs swear they’ll get restructuring right this time
The new Progressive Conservative policy paper, Paths to Prosperity: Patient-Centred Healthcare, isn’t just another far right rant like we’ve heard from Tim Hudak in recent weeks. It does make a few reasonable points: · The Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) lack expertise and provide little value · The health care ‘system’
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Corporate takeover of hospital comes to Ontario
After the announcement by the Liberal govenrment that they would spin work off from hospitals to private clinics, Centric, a corporation with other private facilities in Canada, has now moved in with plans to buy the Shouldice Hospital in Toronto. Shouldice is an 89 bed, five operating room hospital in Toronto
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: 5 Ontario hospitals abandon fight against superbug
Some Ontario hospitals are giving up on trying to control the superbug VRE. No doubt the hospitals a re responding to government funding squeeze on hospitals. Below, infection control experts offer a tart warning of the consequences of this policy. We’ve been down similar road before: past cuts to hospital
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Public sector employment increases 2.45%
Public sector employment made a significant comeback in August in Ontario, according to Statistics Canada. After significant declines since April 2011, public sector employment has now made up most of the losses. With a growth of 32,300 public sector jobs in August (2.45%), Ontario is now only about 10,000 jobs behind the
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty: more legislation targeting public sector coming
The Liberal plan to obtain a majority by targeting public sector workers went askew last night, with the Liberals falling to a distant third place in the Kitchener-Waterloo by-election. But they are not deterred in their chosen path. After the defeat, Dalton McGuinty promised to continue pushing his current bill
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty: a second legislative attack on collective bargaining?
Dalton McGuinty has once again inserted himself into the collective bargaining process and given the union representing over 11,000 “professional” and “supervisory” civil servants until September 9th to settle their collective agreement. Or else. The government and the union, AMAPCEO, have been in bargaining since July 3. Apparently, the government believes
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: McGuinty neatly stokes interest arbitration campaign
Dalton McGuinty has craftily stoked his campaign to change the rules for interest arbitration — the system imposed on essential service workers who are forbidden by law from striking to settle collective bargaining disputes. The Liberals had tried to tilt the system in favour of the employers in their Budget
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Another McGuinty fib? Restraint "just for a couple of years"
This morning while touring a french catholic school, Dalton McGunity said that restraint was “just for a couple of years”. That is not the official Liberal plan. The Liberal finance’s minister’s July statement proposes a compensation freeze (including benefits) for new collective agreements. Even progress through an established wage grid
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: P3 deals are "millstones" says Health Minister
The growing crisis of public private partnership (P3) hospitals in Britain has now forced the health minister to announce that he will be sending in “hit squads” to make savings at twelve hospitals where the P3 contracts have gone “horribly wrong” the conservative Daily Telegraph reports. This is a follow up from
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: When a wage freeze is not a wage freeze
In its dispute with teachers, the Ontario Liberal government sometimes tries to claim that one union’s offer of a wage freeze is not in fact a wage freeze. The rationale here is that even though no teacher would get a general wage increase for two years, some junior teachers would
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Long-term care: expansion or contraction?
A 2011 Conference Board of Canada report done for the for-profit long-term care (LTC) facilities in Ontario estimates (based on population projections and utilization by age) that 238,000 Ontarians will be in need of long-term care by 2035. This compares with about 98,000 today. So we are looking at a need to increase long-term care 143%.
Continue readingDefending Public Healthcare: Long-term care industry plans reinvention during austerity
Not all beds in “Long Term Care” facilities provide long term care. “Convalescent care” beds are a form of “short-stay” beds in long-term care (LTC) facilities. Convalescent beds receive an extra $70.94 more per day than standard “long term” beds do in LTC facilities. That’s 45.7% more funding than the
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