As an American I tell people I have lived in your privitization future and it isn’t prettty. This is especially true when it comes to health care. Folks here don’t know how good you have it. Yes, for sure, all health care systems can and should be improved – and there are plenty of good opportunities in Ontario where I live. The Ontario Liberals have brought in some good things, such as supporting the growth and use of Nurse Practioners, but they have also drunk the privitization cool-aid when it comes to building and operating hospitals which hasn’t gone so well.
Now it turns out in Today’s budget that local hospitals, which have been taking a beating from government, continue to get hurt. The Ontario Health Coalition (disclosure: where I worked for a little while) reported today:
The budget contains very little information and almost no detail on health care spending.
– Increases for hospital global budgets are going down to 2.1%, as predicted, below the rate of inflation faced by hospitals. This means that, as warned (by the OHC), 70+% of Ontario’s hospitals will be pushed into deficit this fiscal year. Communities waiting to hear if the McGuinty government will stop their hospital or ER closures (Wallaceburg, Port Colborne, Fort Erie, St. Joseph’s Island, Durham area) have not received any answers in this budget.
– Ontario’s hospitals are funded $1.6 billion less than other provinces. Hospital funding has been shrinking as a percentage of health care spending for 20 years.
– The budget provides no figures for long term care facilities, and no commitment to provide even previously announced improvements to staffing and care levels.
– Homecare increases are negligible.
– In the budget documents, the government is continuing to pretend its privatized P3 hospital program is moving ahead, even though frozen capital markets have delayed or derailed projects everywhere, including in St. Catharines.
Building local public hospital capacity is what’s needed, not shutting down services. In the immortal words of Joni Mitchell "You don’t know what you’ve got till its gone." Trust me, I know.
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