Advisory Committee Report
Turns Its Back on Ontario's
Hospital Capacity Crisis
- Ontario Council of Hospital
Unions -
Health care workers participate in Queen's Park rally in defence
of
public health care,
October 23, 2018.
Today's [January 31] initial report from
Ontario's
PC government "expert" Reuben Devlin "can only be seen as an epic
failure to face the truth about why patients are in the hallways
and
tub rooms of overcrowded hospitals. Mr. Devlin is turning his
back on
Ontario's hospital capacity crisis," says [Michael Hurley,]
president
of the
Ontario Council of Hospital Unions (OCHU), the large-hospital
division
of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) in Ontario.
"The evidence shows that Ontario has a hospital
capacity problem, too few beds and staff. Attempts to paint the
capacity issues as an alternate level of care (ALC) clog ignore
scientific studies that suggest that at least one-third of people
designated as ALC patients are suffering from multiple conditions
and
do require acute care
hospitalization," says Hurley.
 OCHU is urging the
Premier
and health minister to put patients' interest above their
government's
plans to give more tax breaks and cut billions of dollars from
public
services and look at the clear evidence that investments in our
under-resourced hospitals and more beds are needed to end hallway
medicine.
Access and capacity problems that the Ontario
hospital
system is facing are only going to grow, warns Hurley. "What's
needed
is not a permanent investment and expansion, but significant
investments and beds are needed to fund the hospital needs of
Ontario
for the next 25 years, after which the demographic wave
recedes
and the need
for such investments diminishes over time. Ontario did not turn
its
back on the reality of the baby boom, and it must not turn its
back on
that generation as it ages and needs more health care
services.
"What's especially cynical about the politics of
the
Devlin report is that it suppresses access to hospital services,
already the lowest in the country, to move those needed dollars
to
massive tax cuts to corporations and the wealthy, already at the
lowest
levels in North America," says Hurley.
In the last two decades, despite Ontario's
booming and
increasing population, nearly 18,000 beds were cut from
hospitals
creating constant overcrowding all year long, not just in surge
flu
season periods. Ontario spends the least on hospital care than
other
provinces, about $400 less per patient, although it is the
richest. Patients in
this province receive one-half hour less nursing care per day and
have
the shortest hospital length of stay.
Studies show that just a few minutes more of
bedside
care significantly improve patient outcomes. Ontario is an
outlier in
terms of its lack of hospital capacity with respect to Canada
and,
especially, in comparison to countries in the Organization of
Economic
Cooperation and Development (OECD), notes Hurley. "It is,
however, a
world
leader in readmissions to hospital, a telling sign of lack of
capacity
which drives people out of hospital while they are still ill and
brings
them back for longer and more costly hospitalization -- a telling
system failure."
Devlin's cure for hospital overcrowding mirrors
an old
prescription of the previous Liberal government to replace
hospital
care with home care. "We need additional home care to keep pace
with
the hospital discharges and to avoid hospitalization, but home
care is
not a substitute for the absent hospital bed capacity. This is
simply
used as an
excuse for not adding the needed beds in our hospitals. We should
prepare for more hallway health care if Premier Ford fills
Devlin's
prescription," says Hurley.
This article was published in
Number 4 - February 7, 2019
Article Link:
Advisory Committee Report
Turns Its Back on Ontario's
Hospital Capacity Crisis - Ontario Council of Hospital
Unions
Website: www.cpcml.ca
Email: editor@cpcml.ca
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