Ontario Hospital Crisis Province-Wide and By Community

October 24, 2022

Ontario Hospital Crisis Province-Wide and By Community

Toronto — Across Ontario, the hospital crisis continues to burn through the resilience of the province’s truly heroic health care staff. As the burden of infectious disease has increased, with the removal of virtually all public health measures to mitigate the spread of COVID-19; the flu, other respiratory illnesses, and a severe backlog of surgeries and diagnostic tests continues to stretch our public hospitals beyond the breaking point. Emergency services continue to be shut down in local hospitals due to the staffing crisis. Paramedics are reporting Code Zero events, meaning all available ambulances are busy and unavailable for emergency calls. The Coalition is hearing from staff in paediatric hospitals that they continue to be full with no beds available. The Ontario Health Coalition released its updated tracking of hospital emergency department closures and services in crisis today.

While there is an international crisis brought on by the pandemic, the depth of Ontario’s hospital crisis is extreme comparatively, and it is not inevitable. Successive Ontario governments have pursued the most radical hospital downsizing policy of the country, and among virtually all developed nations. This does not excuse the current government. When the Ford government took power, it cut hospital funding to below the rate of inflation — meaning real dollar cuts – to force continued downsizing leading into the pandemic despite clear evidence that the hospital cuts had gone too far. Wage restraint legislation that caps wage increases in public health care services at 1 percent while inflation is running at more than 6 percent continues to inflame the deep sense of anger, burnout and injustice among health care professionals who have risked their lives for us throughout the pandemic. The Ford government has remained intransigent, refusing to lift the wage cap despite the unprecedented staffing crisis across hospitals, long-term care and home care. Ford’s fiscal plan was – and remains – to keep hospital costs down to help fund tax cuts.

Ontario has the most extreme hospital downsizing in Canada

Using government data reported to the Canadian Institute of Health Information (CIHI), Canada’s crown corporation responsible for tracking health system statistics, the Coalition compared the most recent available information on the number of hospital beds per person and hospital funding. The results are clear: Ontario has downsized its hospitals to a radical extent seen nowhere else in Canada. This downsizing has been achieved through arbitrarily keeping hospital funding at the lowest rate of any province.

Hospital Beds Per 1000 People in 2021

 

Newfoundland & Labrador

4.43

New Brunswick

3.49

Nova Scotia

3.20

Prince Edward Island

3.16

Manitoba

3.11

Saskatchewan

3.08

British Columbia

2.63

Alberta

2.52

Ontario

2.33

Average of other provinces

3.2

 


  Ontario Health Coalition calculations from: Canadian Institute for Health Information, Data Table: Hospital Beds Staffed and in Operation 2020-2021. Population statistics from StatsCan Database 2021

 

Create a crisis then privatize

While many of Ontario’s large hospitals are running at or over 100 percent capacity– meaning every bed is full and patients are waiting on stretchers for admission to the inpatient units– there are hospital beds, entire floors and units, and operating rooms that exist but are closed because they have not been funded and staffed across the province. In addition, hospital professionals report that MRI shifts overnight have been left unstaffed due to the staffing crisis. In fact, in the most recent review of Ontario’s large hospitals by the Ontario Auditor General (pp. 450) our province’s large hospitals have operating rooms that have been shut down for weeks or months each year due to lack of funding, or even permanently. As the staffing crisis has overtaken funding as the load-limiting issue, the province has failed to implement comprehensive recommendations to mitigate the staffing crisis from organizations representing patients and hundreds of thousands of staff to mitigate it. Instead of choosing to address the crisis by resourcing and supporting our local public hospitals, and by stopping the price gouging by private for-profit staffing agencies, the provincial government is choosing instead to funnel funding and resources to private for-profit clinics and hospitals that often extra bill patients and serve only the healthy, profitable, quick patients and the wealthy who can afford their extra fees that amount to hundreds or thousands of dollars. Those for-profit clinics and staffing agencies pose a real and urgent threat to single tier public health care.

Hospital ER Crisis

Ontario-wide

From July 2 – September 16 the Toronto Star compiled data from announcements and local media coverage and found there were 86 emergency department closures in Ontario across 17 hospitals. Cumulatively the closures represent 1,780 hours when people needing urgent/emergency care could not get it in their communities.

An Ontario Health report leaked by the Liberal opposition last week illustrates the extent of the problem in that province. Patients in an emergency room waited more than 33 hours for an inpatient bed in August, a 54 per cent increase compared with the same month a year earlier. Ambulance offload times also rose, with patients waiting up to 83 minutes before entering the hospital.

In the week ending October 1, only 14 of the 109 pediatric ICU beds were available across the entire province, according to the latest provincial data published on Oct 6. That’s the lowest pediatric bed capacity the province has seen since Dec. 24, 2021 when 10 of the 83 pediatric ICU beds were available.

Regional Crisis List:

Here is a list illustrating the extent of the unprecedented, province-wide crisis in our public hospitals:

Eastern Ontario

On October 17, there were no ambulances available in Lanark County for several hours.

On October 16, Dr. Alan Drummond had a patient in Perth who was sent to Napanee for emergency surgery due to no surgery being available locally in Kingston, Brockville, or Ottawa.

Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO), a pediatric hospital and research centre in Ottawa, is facing “unprecedented volumes” in its emergency department this fall, with many patients admitted to hospital waiting more than 30 hours for an available bed, said president and CEO Alex Munter. The ER, designed for about 150 kids, has had a higher number come through its doors every day in 2022, including 211 patients on Oct. 6. Earlier this week, the hospital’s inpatient medical units were at 127 per cent of capacity, as per reporting from the Toronto Star.

Glengarry Memorial in Alexandria has dealt with multiple closures over the past few months, closing overnight from October 14 – 16, overnight from September 30 – October 3, overnight on September 3,  overnight every Friday-Sunday during the first 3 weeks of August, and overnight every night from July 15 – August 3.

Kemptville District Hospital closed its emergency department every night from August 31 – September 5.

Montfort Hospital in Ottawa closed it’s emergency department overnight on August 6 and August 7, except to admit ambulances, due to staffing shortages.

Carleton Place & District Memorial Hospital’s emergency department was closed for an entire day on August 6 due to staffing shortages.

The Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital was forced to close its emergency department for three full weeks from July 2-24 due to staffing shortages.

Southwestern Ontario

On October 18, Dr. Hassanali Kapasi of Guelph described how terrible the situation was in Guelph, with 20+ admitted patients in the emergency room, a code red EMS situation, and periods in the prior week with 9+ hour off-load times for EMS.

As of October 17, the Ouellette campus at Windsor Regional Hospital is at 106 per cent capacity for medical/surgical patients and the Metropolitan Campus is at 107 per cent. Between the two sites, there are 44 emergency patients waiting for a bed.

Wingham and District Hospital has had numerous emergency department closures since July, with the Toronto Star reporting six closures as of September 16 with an additional overnight closure taking place on October 15.

Seaforth Community Hospital has had multiple overnight emergency department closures over the past few months, closing overnight on October 13, August 21, July 22, and July 12 -14.

On October 12, Essex County announced a Code Black that was in effect for 3 hours on October 12 due to lack of available ambulances in the region.

On October 11, the Waterloo region was forced to pull ambulances from the Guelph-Wellington Paramedic Service due to a Code Red emergency. Guelph-Wellington eventually moved into a Code Red of its own later that same night.

The Children’s Hospital at London Health Sciences Centre has recently had to transfer patients who need an ICU bed outside the region due to limited capacity in their pediatric ICUs.

The Port Colborne Urgent Care Centre was closed overnight on October 8 due to staffing shortages.

The Chesley Hospital emergency department closed on October 7 for multiple weeks with a scheduled reopening date of Dec. 2. This is in addition to multiple emergency department closures over the summer for both the Chesley and Walkerton Hospitals in the region.

The average emergency room wait times at Grand River Hospital have increased by 37 per cent last year, while waits at St. Mary’s General Hospital jumped 55 per cent, noted OCHU in September.

St. Marys Memorial Hospital experienced numerous emergency department closures over the past few months, with overnight closures from August 22-26, on July 24, on July 22, on July 8, and a full day closures on July 23.

Clinton Public Hospital closed its emergency department numerous times over the past few months, closing its doors on August 12, August 6, July 11, and 3 days from July 2-4. The hospital has continued to operate with reduced hours from 8 am – 6 pm when it has been opened, with the exception of July 12, when the emergency department closed at 2 pm.

Central Ontario

On October 12, an Orangeville ambulance operated by the Dufferin County Paramedic Service, had responded to a call in Dundas, which is an approximately one-hour-and-15-minute drive away.

SickKids Hospital’s intensive care unit reached full capacity over the weekend of October 8-9 and had longer than normal wait times in the emergency department.

This fall, McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton reports having to more frequently transfer children from their own region to another part of the province and children from south central Ontario have recently been transported to Ottawa for a pediatric ICU bed. SickKids Hospital in Toronto has also not been able to accept some children in the area who need lower levels of ICU care, forcing those patients to be transported to other pediatric hospitals farther away.

Bowmanville Hospital closed its ICU in late July, resuming some critical care nursing services in mid-August and inpatient critical care services on September 7.

A section containing 10 beds at Kingston General Hospital’s emergency department were closed during the weekend of July 30-31 and Hotel Dieu Hospital’s Urgent Care Centre shut its doors at 6:20 pm instead of 8 pm on August 1 due to reaching its full capacity.

Credit Valley Hospital reported emergency room patients waiting for an average of 34.8 hours in July. In October, 104 patients were reported to have been waiting in the ER for admission.

Northwestern Ontario

Red Lake Margaret Cochenour Memorial Hospital (RLMCMH) closed its emergency department overnight on July 7, which was the 2nd closure this year after a closure on March 26.

JOIN THE TWITTER STORM

Comrades,
Please sign and share the petition below and if you are on Twitter, join the Twitter Storm this Saturday.

 ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ 

Justice for Workers

Please join Saturday’s Day of Action: 

  • Fix Employment Insurance Now
  • Stop the Sept. 24 EI Benefit Cliff

On Saturday, September 24, join the pan-Canadian online day of action to fix Employment Insurance. Help us create a Twitter storm to let the federal government know that it must take action now to ensure workers have access to EI when they need it.

Here’s how you can help: 

  1. Sign and share this petition.
  2. RSVP for the Day of Action on Facebook and on our website. 
  3. On Saturday, share the following tweet:
    Sign the petition & tell @JustinTrudeau: Fix #EmploymentInsurance now! Extend the Recovery Measures, expand #EI access, improve the weekly benefit & fund an annual gov’t contribution: https://www.justice4workers.org/fix_employment_insurance_petition @CQualtro @cafreeland @PierrePoilievre @yfblanchet @theJagmeetSingh
  4. Forward this email message to your decent work, trade union, and social justice networks.

Thanks for your support! Let’s make it happen this Saturday. 

David Bush on behalf of Justice for Workers

—

Background: 

On September 24, all temporary measures that improved our access to EI will expire.

It’s urgent we extend the Recovery Measures as a bridge to permanent EI improvements. Workers will otherwise face a huge jump in the current minimum of 420 qualifying hours for both Regular and Special Benefits (parental, sickness, etc.), and the allocation/clawback of separation payments. Women, workers of colour, and others in precarious jobs are at particular risk.

At the start of COVID, the federal government relaxed EI eligibility to improve access to emergency support for those most in need. Without these supports, it would have been much worse for workers and their families due to the COVID closures, lockdowns, and layoffs. As a Statistics Canada report shows, the positive impact of an accessible EI system on workers’ lives is undeniable. [1]

An inaccessible and inadequate EI program is another disaster for workers who need access to EI now when the next crisis hits.

That’s why we are demanding the federal government immediately extend the temporary EI measures and implement the following permanent changes: 

  • Expand EI access: 
    • A 360-hour or 12-week qualifying rule with 50 weeks of income support
    • An end to harsh disqualification rules
    • Ensure migrant workers have access to EI
    • End misclassification, a practice where employers falsely label their employees as self-employed independent contractors to avoid paying their fair share of EI and CPP
  • Improve the weekly benefit rate and include a guaranteed weekly minimum
  • Fund a new, annual federal government contribution to EI to help pay for improvements, provide adequate staffing with fair pay, and ensure EI acts as an effective economic stabilizer at times of crisis

For a detailed break of how the old rules will impact workers across the country, click here.

For a leaflet that you can share in your community explaining what’s at stake, click here.  

[1] “Pandemic benefits cushion losses for low-income earners and narrow income inequality.” Statistics Canada. July 13th, 2022.

JUSTICE FOR WORKERS

DECENT WORK FOR ALL

Justice for Workers: Decent Work for All

720 Spadina Avenue Suite 223, Toronto, Ontario M5S 2T9

info@justice4workers.org

Health Coalitions denounce for-profit deal by Canadian Blood Services that endangers Canada’s Blood Supply

  • Health Coalitions denounce for-profit deal by
    Canadian Blood Services that endangers Canada’s
    Blood Supply
    Canada’s provincial and territorial Health Coalitions and the Canadian Health Coalition
    call for the resignation of the leadership of the Canadian Blood Services (CBS) including
    the CEO and Board of Directors. This call comes after the appalling decision by CBS to
    sign a 15-year agreement with a for-profit international pharmaceutical firm to collect
    plasma.
    Instead of investing in expanding successful publicly operated voluntary plasma
    collection, CBS has signed an agreement that ensures private profits while risking the
    sustainability of Canada’s blood and plasma supply. The agreement hands over the
    collection of plasma to private for-profit company Grifols, which will pay donors for
    plasma, something that experts and public interest advocates have strongly opposed. In
    fact, Grifols has a history of going into Mexico loading up buses of people taking them
    across into the US harvesting the plasma and taking them back into Mexico the same
    day.
    This deal endangers the sustainability of Canada’s blood supply by opening up a
    precious and medically crucial public asset to profit-making. Instead of blood being a
    universal and free public resource, this deal opens up the doors to private, for-profit
    corporations moving into the blood collection system. This would harm the voluntary
    donation system that Canadians currently rely on.
    Importantly, this undemocratic deal circumvents legislated provincial bans on private
    payment for plasma in Ontario and BC. CBS has undermined existing legislation and
    the citizens of Ontario and BC to make a unilateral decision about Canada’s plasma
    supply. This is an undemocratic violation of the trust that the public placed in CBS to
    protect the public blood and plasma collection system.
    The Krever commission/Royal Commission of Inquiry on the Blood System in Canada,
    which led to the creation of the CBS itself, noted that blood should be a public resource
    and no one should be paid to donate blood or plasma. In provinces where private
    payment for plasma occurs, voluntary donations have been negatively impacted.

  • There are proven public and non-profit solutions to increase and protect Canada’s
    voluntary blood and plasma supply such as building more publicly-operated collection
    sites. In fact, CBS has already increased their capacity to collect plasma through new
    voluntary donation sites.
    Paid plasma goes against the advice of major international healthcare organizations
    such as the World Health Organization, the European Blood Alliance and many others.
    Therefore, Canada’s Health Coalitions are calling on our health ministers to act to
    protect our public system, and for the replacement of the CBS CEO and Board of
    Directors for failing to fulfill their mandate or take leadership in the interest of the
    Canadian public.

Campaign Launch – September 21st

Campaign Launch – September 21st

Comrades,

Canada’s Labour movement has had a long and productive relationship with the United Way. This is true nationally, and it is equally true for the PDLC and our local United Way.  Coming out of the pandemic, the United Way must now expand its capacity to address critical needs in our community. In doing so, of course, we aid fellow workers through the United Way’s partner agencies, workers who are helping people through crises, assisting those in need, and mapping paths from poverty to opportunity. The United Way gives us a way to help those whose jobs embody the principles of the Labour Movement. Compassion, Equity, Social Justice, and Solidarity.

This year’s United Way Campaign launches at the Healthy Planet Arena on Wednesday, September 21st at 7:00 am. If you’re available to join us for a hot breakfast and local entertainment, individual tickets are available for $25 at: https://www.uwpeterborough.ca/event/2022-campaign-launch/.

The Labour Council’s Executive is sponsoring a table and so do please come and find us when you arrive.

There is a great deal that Labour can do to build a stronger, healthier Peterborough through the United Way. It is for this reason that I recently agreed to serve as Board Chair of the United Way Peterborough and District and I am proud to have Marion Burton joining me as the PDLC’s other representative on the Board. In short, Labour is a strong voice at the Table, but it needs to be amplified by you.

In Solidarity,

Marcus

P.S. There are many more important events coming up in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned and follow us on Facebook.

—

Marcus Harvey,

PDLC President

Reaction to New Regulations Forcing Patients out of Hospitals

[OHC] Grotesque, Ageist & Morally Repugnant: Our Reaction to New Regulations Forcing Patients out of Hospitals
The regulations for the new long-term care act are a violation of human rights and reeks of grotesque ageism. That’s why we held a press conference today to fight back against plans to take away the fundamental right to consent to health care for patients in hospitals. We are not having any of it.

A recording of the press conference can be viewed here (no account required): https://www.facebook.com/ontariohealth/videos/1262453651238649
The Ford government made a statement yesterday regarding the regulations for Bill 7, which was passed without public consultation at the end of August. The new law, disingenuously titled “More Beds, Better Care Act”, gives new powers to hospitals to assess patients waiting for long-term care beds in hospitals without their consent, share their personal information with an array of corporations without their consent, to fill in an application without consent and to admit them into a long-term care home without their consent.

The Health Minister released details regarding planned regulations to be implemented starting September 21, 2022, thus there will be no normal 30-60 day consultation period on the regulations. The government appears to have expanded the number of services for which patients may be waiting. They are planning to expand who is targeted by this legislation to include people waiting for home care and other community care as well. They have announced plans to charge patients $400 a day if they do not move out of hospitals to a place to which they do not want to go, overriding their right to consent. In Southern Ontario they have announced plans to move people up to 70 km and in Northern Ontario up to 150 km away. Very disturbingly, not one part of the Ford government’s statement gave any recognition whatsoever to the patient’s right to consent. A number of false and incorrect statements were made by the Minister that are pointed out in the press conference.

Ontario Health Coalition needs your Help

Urgent time contingent: need ALC patients/people who tried to go to emerg for media
Hi everyone,

We have been doing a lot of media work and I need your help if possible. It is urgent and time contingent.
  • Do you have a family member/are you an ALC (Alternate Level of Care) patient waiting in hospital to go to a long-term care home and thus at risk of being forced under the Ford government’s new law into a home not of your choice/with poor care/far away? If so, are you willing to speak to a reporter about it? It needs to be today, as soon as possible.
  • Did you are anyone you know try to go to an emergency department only to find it closed as hospitals across the province have been closing emergency departments as a result of the staffing crisis? If so, are you willing to speak to a reporter about it? Again, this is on a deadline.
Please email me back if you can help.
Thank you very much.
Sending warmest regards,
Natalie Mehra
Executive Director

—

We are proud of the difference we make and we hope you are too. This work is only made possible by people who care like you. Please do become a member or donate. It matters!
If you can, please CLICK HERE to donate or become a member.
Ontario Health Coalition

15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201

Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8

URGENT: Book Your Hotel Room By Sept 2 Ontario Health Coalition

Ford isn’t taking the summer off from his plans to privatize our public health care. We desperately need your help to join, build a fierce resistance and organize our communities as we fight one of the most important fights to defend public medicare in decades. Please register and join our action assembly and annual conference. Details below.

URGENT: Book Your Hotel Room By Sept 2 

Ontario Health Coalition

Health Action Assembly & Annual Conference

In-person: Central YMCA, 20 Grosvenor Street, Toronto,

or by Zoom for those who want to participate virtually (from home by computer)

Saturday October 1st &  Sunday October 2nd

10:30 a.m. – 4:30 p.m.        9 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.

The fact that Doug Ford has won another majority government in Ontario presents daunting challenges for the defenders of Public Medicare. However, along with our challenges we also have opportunities. Significant funding has flowed to health care, the federal government is considering increasing funding — possibly with strings attached — which would be positive, and health care is very much in the public eye. Nevertheless, from hospitals to long-term care to home care we are in crisis.

Now, more than ever, we need fearless, strong, ambitious action and strategy to stop privatization, force Ford to address the health care staffing crisis and make good on his promises to improve long-term care. Each year, we invite everyone who believes in Public Medicare and wants to work to defend and improve it to join together in a major strategy session. This year’s assembly is critically important. Join us for briefings, speakers, report-ins and strategizing.

Hotel Rooms: We have reserved a block of hotel rooms at a reduced rate at the Courtyard by Marriott Downtown Toronto at 475 Yonge Street. The rate is $259 per night plus tax. To book your room at this discount rate , please click the link to book online or call 1 (800) 847-5075 and cite Ontario Health Coalition as the group name to receive the reduced rate. Please book as soon as possible, as space is limited and the deadline to book your hotel room at the discounted rate is Friday September 2.

Local Coalitions are asked to please seek local funding first to subsidize your travel costs. If you need a subsidy from the Ontario Health Coalition, we will fund hotel and travel costs for up to two representatives from each active local health coalition. All subsidies must be pre-approved by Natalie Mehra, executive director. Each local coalition seeking to have representatives subsidized by the Ontario Health Coalition must fill out a subsidy request form and submit it to Natalie Mehra at ohc@sympatico.ca for approval. Pls email Natalie to ask for a subsidy request form. Note: we will subsidize amounts up to the block rate for a hotel room and gas (not mileage) or train/plane.

In-Person Registration Form 

Number of people attending:

_____ on Saturday               _____ on Sunday

Name of key contact:

Additional names of attendees:

Organization if applicable:

Address:

City/Town:

Postal code:

Email:

Tel (day):

 (night):

 (cell):

Virtual Registration 

If you are attending virtually, please register by Zoom at: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZMuf-CsrDwtG9RY8SZdH3r2vGOfOA4L32gH After registering you will be emailed a zoom meeting link.  This link will be used for both days of the Assembly/Conference. If you do not receive it, please check your junk or other folders.  It will be sent by Zoom.

Fees: (sliding scale)  

Fees are a sliding scale, so please pay what you can.  If you are a part of an organization that is able to do so, or if it is affordable for you, please try to pay the full amount.  In order for us to have an assembly and organize, we have to bring in members and local coalitions from all across Ontario- from Thunder Bay, Ottawa, Windsor and places in between. We need to cover flights, trains and hotel rooms. The fees are structured so that we are able to subsidize those who need it so that we can all get together to strategize, share analysis and information and organize. Thank you for understanding and helping to make this possible.

Saturday: $0-100 per person (sliding scale)

Amount paid:                x number of people                   = subtotal $

Sunday: $0-50 per person (sliding scale)

Amount paid:                x number of people                   = subtotal $

 

Total:    $ 

Please mark an X to select your payment method:

Enclosed by cheque _____________

OR

Paid online at http://store.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/collections/all ____________

 

 

Mail or email to: Ontario Health Coalition 15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201, Toronto Ontario MC3 1Y8 tel: 416-441-2502

email: ohc@sympatico.ca If emailing, please use the subject line: Assembly registration.

Note: you can pay online at: https://store.ontariohealthcoalition.ca/products/2022-health-action-assembly-annual-conference

—

We are proud of the difference we make and we hope you are too. This work is only made possible by people who care like you. Please do become a member or donate. It matters!
If you can, please CLICK HERE to donate or become a member.
Ontario Health Coalition

15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201

Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8

www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502

Click here to UNSUBSCRIBE from this email list: https://list.web.net/lists/options/ontariohealthcoalition/blueiiz1969%40yahoo.ca

  • Assembly (6).png

Doug Ford’s new legislation being pushed through the Legislature gives new powers to force the elderly & persons with disabilities into substandard long-term care homes: “morally repugnant”

Doug Ford’s new legislation being pushed through the Legislature gives new powers to force the elderly & persons with disabilities into substandard long-term care homes: “morally repugnant”

Toronto — Advocates and experts spoke with one voice today decrying the new law that the Ford government introduced yesterday and intends to pass within just two weeks. The new law, disingenuously titled “More Beds, Better Care Act” gives new powers to force the elderly and persons with disabilities who are waiting in hospitals into long-term care homes against their choice, in what legal experts and patient advocates warn is a fundamental violation of their rights.

The second sentence of the government’s own summary of the bill states:

“This new provision authorizes certain actions to be carried out without the consent of these patients. The actions include having a placement co-ordinator determine the patient’s eligibility for a long-term care home, select a home and authorize their admission to the home. They also include having certain persons conduct assessments for the purpose of determining a patient’s eligibility…”

Fact Check:

Long-Term Care Minister Paul Calandra said yesterday that the bill is not to force patients but to enable them to have “conversations”, to tell patients how much better off they would be if they moved out. This is untrue. They have always been able to have conversations with patients and indeed coercive tactics have been a major problem. The legislation clearly gives new powers to assess the patient without their consent, to send their personal information to an array of long-term care homes (including information about their health and mental status, drug use etc.) without their consent, and to admit them into a long-term care home not of their choosing without their consent.

The second major claim is that this bill will address the staffing crisis in hospitals. However, what we are seeing in hospitals is a crisis in emergency and intensive care units staffed by specialized RNs and health professionals. ALC units are staffed by RPNs and PSWs, not emergency and critical care staff. Furthermore, the leader of Ontario’s long-term care homes warned just yesterday that long-term care homes are experiencing crisis-level staffing shortages.

It is not acceptable to override the fundamental human rights and the right to consent for the elderly in any case. The right to consent is cornerstone to the practice of medicine and health care.

Quotes:

“This legislation overrides the fundamental human rights of frail vulnerable elderly patients,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition. She noted that the good long-term care homes, mostly public and non-profit homes, have huge wait lists and no capacity. It is the horrible long-term homes, exposed for egregious practices and having terrible reviews where no one wants to go, that may have free beds to push patients into. The operators, mostly for-profit, of those homes do not get their full funding unless their beds are 98% full.

“What we think it is about is filling up the beds of the worst long-term care homes that people do not want to go to, for good reason,” said Ms. Mehra. “The government cannot override the rights of seniors to shore up the profits of long-term care operators with terrible records and reputations.” The Ford government has come under fire for its connections with the for-profit long-term care companies before.

“What this legislation does is take away the fundamental right to consent to health care, a right that has been upheld by the Supreme Court,” reported Jane Meadus, lawyer and institutional advocate and the Advocacy Centre for the Elderly. “People are going to be pressured to make bad decisions and the chance of them getting out of the home they do not want to be in and into a home of their choice in their lifetime is frankly low.”

“It can have quite dire results on the senior or the disabled person,” she warned.

“Forcing patients into homes that they are afraid to go to, that are substandard homes, potentially far away from their families, causes early death and suffering. It is morally repugnant,” concluded Dr. Vivian Stamatopoulos, long-term care advocate and professor at UOIT.  

—

We are proud of the difference we make and we hope you are too. This work is only made possible by people who care like you. Please do become a member or donate. It matters!
If you can, please CLICK HERE to donate or become a member.
Ontario Health Coalition

15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201

Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8

www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502

Download all attachments as a zip file

  • LS ALC-LTC.pdf
    154.7kB
  • ATT00001.txt
    130B

Health Coalition response to Ford government’s plans to move seniors out of hospitals & privatize hospital diagnostics and surgeries to for-profit clinics and hospitals

Health Coalition response to Ford government’s plans to move seniors out of hospitals & privatize hospital diagnostics and surgeries to for-profit clinics and hospitals

Toronto – The Ford government released what it called a five-point health care plan this morning in a press conference. In summary:

·         On COVID-19 there was nothing new.

·         On the unprecedented staffing crisis in Ontario’s hospitals, long-term care and home care, there was another in a long string of reannouncements of plans to bring in thousands of new staff in a series of ad hoc measures, similar to what we have heard before. The government remains intransigent on revoking Bill 124. There remains no plan that is anywhere near sufficient nor urgent enough to deal with the staffing crisis.

·         There were, in addition, two very serious and negative announcements, including plans to privatize Ontario’s public hospital surgeries and diagnostics to for-profit clinics, and new legislation to enable the government to move seniors waiting for long-term care out of hospital beds into long-term care homes not of their choosing.

“Cutting through all the bafflegab, today’s announcement had very little to improve public health care and a lot to promote for-profit privatization,” said Natalie Mehra, executive director. “The bottom line is the Ford government is using the health care crisis to privatize Ontario’s public hospital services and to push seniors out to fill long-term care beds in the worst nursing homes that no one wants to go to because they have terrible reputations, most of them for-profit. It is all couched in very carefully selected and manipulative language, but the actual policy changes they are proposing are clear and they clearly benefit for-profit companies at the expense of patients, particularly seniors.”

The Coalition issued the following fact checker on the Ford government statements and what these announcements mean:

Health staffing crisis

The Ford government has repeatedly announced that they are going to bring in thousands, even tens of thousands of PSWs and nurses over the last two years.  They continue to ignore entirely the critical shortage of health professionals (MRI, CT and Laboratory Technologists, Respiratory Therapists and others). Despite the government’s repeated announcements, the staff have not materialized and Ontario’s hospital critical and emergency care are now in an unprecedented staffing crisis. The government has not acted upon comprehensive recommendations to attract back staff who have left and to urgently enact emergency measures to mitigate the crisis. The Minister of Health continued today fail to acknowledge that there is a crisis.

The supposed plan for 6,000 staff announced today and 400 internationally trained nurses bear no relation to the actual shortages. There are more than 20,000 nursing vacancies in Ontario. Hospitals are closing MRIs overnight and respiratory therapists (responsible for ventilating COVID-19 patents and others) describe being unable to do all the overtime they are being called upon to do. Ontario long-term care homes require 37,000 nurses and PSWs to meet care needs and crisis level shortages continue across the province. Home care also has an unprecedented staffing shortage leaving patients without any access to home care or left at home waiting with home visits missed.

The claims by Premier Ford that it is normal for emergency departments and critical care to shut down in hospitals across the province is false. In the Ontario Health Coalition’s fifty years of existence, the widespread closures we are seeing this summer have never happened before. In fact, emergency department closures are very rare and have only happened in a few small hospitals as a last resort. We are not aware of critical care units shutting down due to shortages ever.

The Health Minister’s refusal to acknowledge that there is an unprecedented health care staffing crisis is disputed by everyone from from line physicians, nurses, health professionals and PSWs to the leaders of long-term care, home care and clinical hospital leaders. The current crisis is unprecedented and very real. It is threatening needed care for patients.

Despite the Premier’s claim that the government cannot control price gauging by private for-profit staffing agencies, the Premier announced in the pandemic that he would stop price gauging and even launched a toll-free number for Ontarians to report it. The previous government agreed to make amendments to legislation to require a reduction in the use of agency staff. It is false that the government has no power over the corrosive practices and predatory pricing of the for-profit staffing industry.

For-profit privatization of hospitals

So-called “Independent Health Facilities” are in fact private for-profit clinics. Ontario’s Auditor General reports that 98% of the IHFs are for-profit. The Private Hospitals Act (1973) banned any new private for-profit hospitals fifty years ago, for good reason.

It is false for the Minister to assert that privatizing the provision of hospital surgeries and diagnostics will not result in two-tier health care and user charges for patients. Across Canada the overwhelming majority of hospital surgeries and MRIs/CTs are done in public hospitals operated on a non-profit basis in the public interest. However, there have been ongoing attempts to privatize these services by governments close to the for-profit corporations. We have, multiple times called every private clinic in the country and have caught the majority of them charging patients thousands of dollars for health care services. We have published the transcripts of those calls and surveys of hundreds of patients giving the evidence of these violations of the Canada Health Act and provincial laws that prohibit charging patients user fees amounting to double, quadruple or even five-times the cost under public health care.  ($1000 for an MRI that costs around $300 under OHIP. $2000 for cataract surgery that costs $550 under OHIP.) The evidence is that the private clinics sell all kinds of medically unnecessary add ons, upsell extra unneeded diagnostic tests to elderly patients, and engage in unethical self-referral, requiring their patients to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket charges. The evidence is that the for-profit privatization of public hospital services poses an existential threat to single-tier public medicare.

The Ontario Health Coalition held 20 press conferences in the months leading into the election warning that the Ford government was planning to privatize surgeries and diagnostics. They categorically denied it in numerous media interviews but are now, a few months after the election doing precisely what they proclaimed they were not planning to do. Here is a sampling of the Ford government spokesperson’s statements weeks before the provincial election call:

“These claims are categorically false,” said Hilkene. “To be clear, the government is committed to supporting the province’s public health care system. The use or function of private hospitals and independent health facilities in Ontario is not being expanded or changed.” Their statements are available here, here and here.

Forced movement of seniors into long-term care homes not of their choice

Long-Term Care Minister Paul Caladra’s claims that this initiative is to allow conversation is so manipulative as to be false. Obviously hospital discharge planners already have the ability, and have always had the ability, to have conversations with patients to move them out of hospitals. What they are not allowed to do is coerce patients. Patients already have to choose a minimum of five LTC homes to shortlist and there are an array of measures to pressure patients to move out of hospitals. Already coercive tactics to push the elderly out of hospitals without care or to inadequate places is one of the most common cause of complaint received by patient advocates. The change proposed by the government enables them to push elderly patients into places not of their choosing.

The claim that these moves will be temporary is false. The life expectancy of seniors entering long-term care is 18 months. Many will never make it to a home of their choice. Many will die in a place they do not want to live.

The claim that this will fix the hospital staffing crisis is false. Emergency departments and Intensive care units are staffed by specialized RNs and health professionals. Alternate care units where seniors are waiting for long-term care are staffed by PSWs and RPNs primarily. They are not transferable.

We think this announcement is about filling up the beds of the long-term care homes that are empty – the worst homes, primarily for-profits where no one wants to go. The public and non-profit homes have always had longer wait lists than the for-profits. Since the horrific exposés in the pandemic, Ontarians more widely have heard about the terrible long-term care homes and do not choose them for their shortlists. The LTC operators do not get full funding unless their beds are 98% full. Forcing or otherwise pressuring the elderly into terrible homes that they do not want to go to, especially as it is likely the place will they will die, is odious.

Media note: please note that the odious description of seniors as “taking up” hospital beds that we have heard all day on major newscasts is ageist and wrong. Seniors have the same right to hospital care as younger people. They do not “take up” resources that they are not entitled to. They are not bed blockers. They have suffered enormously and died as a result of discriminatory policies pushing them out of hospitals, refusing them access to hospital care when they needed it, refusing transfers to hospitals from long-term care, particularly in the pandemic.

—

We are proud of the difference we make and we hope you are too. This work is only made possible by people who care like you. Please do become a member or donate. It matters!
If you can, please CLICK HERE to donate or become a member.
Ontario Health Coalition

15 Gervais Drive, Suite 201

Toronto, ON M3C 1Y8

www.ontariohealthcoalition.ca
416-441-2502

Download all attachments as a zip file

  • LS- Press Release- 5-point plan.pdf
    190.8kB
  • ATT00001.txt
    130B