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- Cross-Province High-Level Briefing and Summit on Changes to Hospital Funding
We will provide a briefing from experts in the U.K. and an update regarding plans of the Ontario government. What do the changes to fee-for-service hospital funding mean? What can we do about it?
Meetings in:
Hamilton: Tues, Sept 21, Legion, 435 Limeridge Rd E, 10am-3 pm
Sault Ste. Marie: Wed, Sept 22, Legion, 96 Great Northern Rd, 10am-3 pm
London: Thurs, Sept 23, CAW Hall Local 27, 606 First St, 10am-3 pm
Sudbury: Sat, September 25, Legion, 1553 Weller St, 10am-3 pm
Ottawa: Mon, Sept 27, Ottawa Public Library, 120 Metcalfe St 10am-3 pm
Toronto:Tues, Sept 28, Metro Central YMCA, 20 Grosvenor St, 10:30am-3:30pmCLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION
EVENTS
Monday, November 8, 9 am – 4 pm, Bond Place Hotel, 55 Dundas St. E., Toronto
Presenting: Hon. Ujjal Dosanjh, FMR Health Minister of Canada, FMR B.C. Premier, Current Federal Liberal Health Critic On the Importance of Stopping Health Care Privitization and the Serious Threat to Public Health Care in Canada.
Several for-profit hospitals are trying to dismantle public Medicare in Canada through court challenges to the laws that protect patients against two-tier charges and user fees. Persons with AIDs and MS, other patients with a variety of conditions, nurses, physicians and public health care advocates are fighting back.
SPEAKERS include: Steven Shrybman, Public Interest Lawyer, Sack Goldblatt Mitchell, Ontario; Marjorie Brown, Partner, Victoria Square Law Office, British Columbia; Martha Jackman, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Ottawa; Marie-Claude Prémont, Professor of Law, École nationale d’administration publique, Montréal; Mike McBane, National Co-ordinator, Canadian Health Coalition; Natalie Mehra, Director, Ontario Health Coalition; Rachel Tutte, Co-chair, British Columbia Health Coalition; Glyn Townson, B.C. Persons with AIDS Society; Joyce Jones, B.C. Seniors Advocacy Network; Dr. Duncan Etches, Family Physician; David Eggen, Executive Director, Friends of Medicare (Alta)
Sunday, November 7, 9 am – 2 pm, Bond Place Hotel, 55 Dundas St. E., Toronto
The news waves reverberate with repeated stories about out-of control health costs. Cuts, endless restructuring and delisting are justified using the funding crisis. But a closer look at the numbers shows a different story. This conference will provide the information and a strategy to topple the myth of healthcare unsustainability.
KEYNOTE SPEAKER: We are thrilled to have Dr. Robert G. Evans, eminent economist who is travelling in from British Columbia to speak at this event.
Saturday, November 6, 10 am – 4 pm, Bond Place Hotel, Toronto
Updates on key issues including hospital cuts and restructuring, protecting rural access to care, long term care funding and regulations, retirement homes, homecare, primary health care, P3s and privatization. Participate in a strategy-setting session. This year will lead into the provincial election so it is particularly important.
SPEAKERS: Dr. Pat Armstrong, Hugh Mackenzie economist, Dr. Duncan Etches and Joyce Jones Intervenors, B.C. Court Challenge on single-tier Medicare, Hon. Roger Gallaway LLB and former MP, Ross Sutherland, R.N., M.A., Mike McBane Coordinator, Canadian Health Coalition, Barbara Proctor and Kay Tod, RNs (ret) and our own Natalie Mehra, Director, Ontario Health Coalition.
MEDIA RELEASES AND REPORTS
Ontario Auditor General Jim McCarter is releasing his report on use of consultants by the Ontario Ministry of Health, LHINs and hospitals. The Ontario Health Coalition responded with its own findings on overuse, exorbitant costs and redundancy in the use of consultants by the LHINs and the Ministry.
The Ontario Health Coalition’s critical review of the findings of the Ontario government commissioned TD Economics report on health spending finds that the TD report is rife with inaccuracies and contradictions. The authors appear to fail to understand the extent of restructuring in the 1990s, and they draw no lessons from it. Similarly their analysis of health care privatization is perfunctory and incomplete. There is no costing of the recommendations, and while the report is ostensibly about containing health costs, a number of the recommendations would likely increase expenditures. TD’s support of profit-driven health care is not a solution. It is not an amelioration of the public health system. It is fundamentally incompatible with the principles of equity and universality in Canada Health Act. It would undermine and dismantle efforts to create an effective health system that is organized to meet human need for care.
Panel discussion featuring OHC Director Natalie Mehra, Health Policy analyst Steven Lewis, Globe & Mail columnist Adam Radwanski and Erie St. Clair LHINs CEO Gary Switzer.
(September 13, 2010)
The Canadian Health Coalition has released an important and timely report in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. Authored by pharmaceutical policy expert Marc Andre Gagnon, the report shows that Canadians are paying far too much for drugs, and that our patchwork of public plans, private insurance and out-of-pocket costs is inequitable, overly expensive and inefficient. The Ontario government is leading the provinces in trying to establish a common purchasing plan for drugs so that they can levy bulk-buying power..
The Ontario Health Coalition applauds Ontario Ombudsman Andre Marin’s report “The LHIN Spin”. But the Coalition is deeply concerned that the McGuinty government has evaded its legislative requirement to conduct a full review of its Local Health Integration Networks (LHINs) and the legislation that governs them and is continuing a major round of health system cuts and restructuring while shutting out virtually all public advocates that have expressed concerns or criticized their reforms.
This issue of The Pulse includes a report back on the success of fight-backs in reducing hospital cuts in some communities and updates on big cuts still underway in Niagara, proposed for Peterborough and threatening small town ERs in southwestern Ontario.
According to a detailed analysis conducted by the OHC, the Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) Hospital Improvement Plan (HIP) recommends draconian cuts to staffing levels and proposes significant cuts to hospital beds and services, though it does not reveal the extent of these service reductions because it continues to list unstaffed (and therefore unusable beds) as open beds. The reduction in public hospital services for the Peterborough community and surrounding region proposed in the so-called Hospital Improvement Plan is based on the findings of the Peer Review relating to key performance indicators and financial data. In our analysis of the two documents - the HIP and the Peer Review – we have found that the financial “crisis” is overstated and key financial information has not been provided and the methodology used to determine the PRHC’s status in key performance indicators is deeply flawed.
According to the legal opinion from Sack Golblatt Mitchell LLP, “This Bill raises significant questions in relation to safeguarding the public interest in regulating Ontario health facilities and respecting fundamental human rights. It is to be hoped that the Legislature will subject the provisions of the draft Bill to more thorough scrutiny to ensure that residents of Ontario retirement homes are adequately protected.” It is expected that the Government will pass the legislation this week. The OHC has written a letter to all MPPs asking them to vote against the bill.
This report appeals for equity and improved access to hospital services in rural Ontario and is based on input received from more than 1,150 people who attended 12 hearings in regions across Ontario in March 2010. The coalition organized its own public hearings after the government’s own rural and northern health panel, created after hospital closures in small and rural communities, refused to hold any public consultations. In total the coalition received 487 submissions into the state and future of local hospitals. The report has been written and submitted to the Ontario Health Coalition by a non-partisan panel including doctors, nurses, health professional, representatives of each region of Ontario, and representatives active in each political party.
The Ontario Health Coalition, while applauding the provincial government for bringing in new legislation to govern retirement homes, is deeply concerned about significant portions of the legislation. We support the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly's (ACE's) recommendation that the government take this legislation back and think about the approach. The retirement homes industry is dominated by multinational for-profit chains and its behaviour impacts on thousands of seniors who live in the homes. In Ontario, there have been a number of retirement home fires in which residents have died. Other residents have died from inadequate care. There have been high-profile stories, court cases and coroner's inquests detailing the problems that have contributed to these tragedies. It is completely inappropriate that these facilities be self-regulating. It is important, that when establishing this new Act, the government takes the opportunity to take into account the input it has received from public interest groups and seniors' advocates and heed the warnings.
This issue of The Pulse includes a report back on our hearings on small, rural and northern hospitals and the new report coming out of the process; updates on the Oakville P3 hospital, Town Hall meetings and our protest outside the Health Minister’s speech; Northumberland Hills hospital cuts and fight-back; the new retirement homes act (Bill 21) and proposed cuts at the Peterborough Hospital.
The Ontario Health Coalition is warning Ontarians that the rhetoric used by the McGuinty government to justify hospital cuts is “over the top” and is not supported by the facts.
Premier Dalton McGuinty is planning changes to hospital funding systems, according to his Throne Speech today. The changes, if implemented, will have a profound impact on Ontarian’s access to care. “We are deeply opposed to the government’s proposal to force hospitals to try to underbid each other for funding,” said Natalie Mehra, director of the Ontario Health Coalition. “This system is the opposite of patient-centred care. It ignores the human element of health care entirely.”
This issue of The Pulse includes information about our upcoming hearings on small, rural and northern hospitals; information on the closure of Burk’s Falls Health Centre, an update on Kingston Rideaucrest; an update on the new Long Term Care regulations and more.
The Ontario Health Coalition is requesting a coroner’s inquest into the death of Reilly Anzovino after a Boxing Day car accident. Ms. Anzovino was taken by ambulance to Welland because the closest emergency department in Fort Erie was recently closed due to budget cuts. She passed away prior to arriving at the hospital. This is the second death since the emergency department closures in Fort Erie and Port Colborne that has raised questions about whether the closures have contributed to avoidable fatality. Prior to the closure of the Emergency Departments in Niagara, the Ontario Health Coalition conducted in-depth interviews with 50 paramedics across Ontario. For more information on that report see the next item on this page.
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