Thursday, August 4, 2016

Ontario 'cheats' Windsor out of 234 hospital nurses, union leader says

http://windsorstar.com/news/local-news/ontario-cheats-windsor-out-of-234-hospital-nurses-union-leader-says

A “growing and enormous” $4.8-billion funding gap is to blame for declining care in Ontario’s acute-care hospitals, says the president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions.
The damage for Windsor amounts to 234 fewer hospital nurses, 696 fewer hospital staff and a $74-million funding shortfall, when you compare Ontario’s per-capita hospital funding to the funding in the rest of Canada’s provinces, according to the union.
“You are being cheated out of the equivalent of 234 nurses, RNs and RPNs,” Michael Hurley said at a news conference Thursday at the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 255 in Riverside. The funding for acute hospitals has dropped so below other provinces that patients in Ontario receive six fewer hours of nursing care, he said. And the result is fewer hospital beds and higher rates of medical errors, hospital-sourced infections, and readmission of patients who were sent home too early.
“People don’t get the attention they need when they’re in a health crisis,” said Hurley. “All these things together are the explanation for the backlogs and waits people experience when they go to the hospital.”
Hurley’s union, CUPE, represents about 600 staff at Windsor’s two hospitals — non-acute Hotel-Dieu Grace Healthcare and acute care Windsor Regional Hospital, which earlier this year cited a $20-million budget shortfall as it announced the elimination of 166 full-time equivalent positions, most of those RNs (169 full- and part-time positions according to their union). However, 80 of those FTEs are being replaced by 80 RPNs. Before the cuts, the hospital had about 1,550 RNs.
Hurley is travelling throughout the province, to explain how over the last decade Ontario’s acute hospital funding has been on the slide compared to other provinces. In 2005-06, Ontario was “in the ballpark,” with per capita funding of $1,112 compared to $1,159 for the rest of Canada, Hurley said, citing figures from the Canadian Institute for Health Information. Ten years later, Ontario’s funding was $1,396 compared to $1,750 for the rest of Canada.
Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, speaks to the media during a news conference at the Royal Canadian Legion in Riverside on August 4, 2016.
Michael Hurley, president of the Ontario Council of Hospital Unions, 
speaks to the media during a news conference at the 
Royal Canadian Legion in Riverside on August 4, 2016.  
Dan Janisse / Windsor Star
He said the numbers extrapolated for Windsor are conservative, taking into account only the City of Windsor’s 211,000 population, even though Windsor Regional’s patients come from all over the Windsor-Essex region (population 389,000) and beyond.
Hurley said while Ontario did increase its funding for hospitals during the last decade, it didn’t come close to accounting for inflation, population growth and the aging population. This year, hospitals received a one per cent increase, but their actual costs rose 4.5 per cent, he said. “So their budgets have been cut again.”
Windsor Regional declined to comment on Hurley’s assertions.
In a statement, Health Minister Eric Hoskins said his government is is doing what citizens want — continuing to invest in a health-care system that “puts patients first,” asserting that 94 per cent of Ontarians now have a family doctor, and that wait times for some procedures are among the shortest in the country.
 This year, it’s increasing health funding by $1 billion, a 2.1 per cent increase, and it’s increasing funding to hospitals by $345 million this year. “In Windsor, (since 2003) we’ve increased funding for local hospitals by‎ more than $126 million — an increase of almost 50 per cent,” said Hoskins. 
He also said Ontario is investing additional millions into home care, community health centres and home-based hospice and palliative care, because people prefer to receive their health care at home instead of a hospital.
Hurley said the province argues that while it has been actively downsizing the acute care system, at the same time it’s increasing investments in home care and long-term care, to “pick up the slack.” But he said Ontario is actually spending less on long-term care and home care than the rest of the provinces. He said Ontario’s high readmission rates are a sign the system is suffering.
“So we have fewer beds, there’s tremendous pressure to get people out of those beds and send them home, and often when they’re sent home they haven’t been made well actually and they return to hospital for a more lengthy and expensive readmission.”
Hurley said his council is calling on the government to fund hospitals “at least” at a level that reflects their rising costs, to stop reducing the number of beds and staffing, and to increase access to the people who need it.
The people being hardest hit by this are elderly, he said, who often have lived a long time without serious health problems, until they’re hit with a health crisis that lands them at a hospital doorstep.
“First they queue up in an ER for hours, and if they’re going to be admitted it’s likely a stretcher in a hallway,” he said. And once admitted, there’s likely pressure to get them discharged before they’re fully well, he added.
“For the elderly in particular they feel the brunt because there’s rationing going on, the beds are so scarce.”
bcross@postmedia.com