Cuts drive crisis for unpaid women caregivers
Cascading health care cuts are resulting in significant problems for home care patients and their families, seriously undermining the main defense the government makes for its policy of hospital and…
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Cuts drive crisis for unpaid women caregivers
Cascading health care cuts are resulting in significant problems for home care patients and their families, seriously undermining the main defense the government makes for its policy of hospital and…
Ontario hospital length of stay in rapid decline, Canadian average now 21% longer
New hospital inpatient length of stay data published by the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) indicates Ontario lengths of stay continue to decline, but the pace of decline has…
Health care employment in Ontario and Canada
Hospital employees in Ontario form a much smaller part of the population than in the rest of Canada – in 2014 about 0.32 % less of the population than in…
Rapid change in public hospital services
Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) hospital data indicates big changes in hospital activity, particularly in the most recent four years reported. Ontario, especially, is experimenting with hospital cuts and…
Rest of Canada spends 23% more on hospitals than Ontario
Provincial government hospital expenditure per person in Ontario compared to the rest of Canada based on CIHI data. A large gap has grown between what the Ontario provincial government spends…
Are hospitals primarily providers of acute care?
Hospitals are often stereotyped as providers of acute care services. In fact, acute care accounts for a relatively small portion of total hospital services. As noted a few days ago,…
Ontario: 6.1 fewer hours of care per hospital patient
The real costs for the average hospital acute care patient are declining. As noted yesterday this is true for both Ontario and Canada, based on data just released from the…
Costs of hospital treatment falling
Ontario has the lowest hospital cost per weighted case of all the provinces. And the cost difference between Ontario and the rest of the country is growing. Hospital Cost Per…
Are employer paid drug plans unsustainable?
A Great West Life Assurance executive recently claimed that private insurance for drug plans was becoming unsustainable — unless changes are made. Almost all private drug insurance plans are paid…
Health care spending continues decline
Contrary to the hysteria from conservatives, health care spending continues to decline as a percentage of the provincial budget. Last year, health care accounted for 38.5% of total expenditures, this…
English reforms lose their appeal in Ontario?
England has had a disproportionate impact on health care reform in Ontario over the last decade or so –under both Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments. After the election of a…
Nursing levels low and getting lower
Yesterday, I wrote about the significant lack of nursing care in Ontario hospitals compared to the other provinces. Even on a Canada-wide basis, there was 5.32 hours more nursing care…
Hospital costs lower in Ontario
The “cost per weighted case” in Ontario hospitals in 2010-11 was $5,143, according to a new report from CIHI. (This indicator measures the relative cost-efficiency of a hospital’s ability to…
MRSA and C. Difficile rates fall (but not here)
A new report from the Chief Medical Officer of Health in England reports that “rates of C. difficile have fallen consistently in all English regions in recent years. MRSA has…
Hospital cuts in 1.7% to 2.7% range
More hospital savings. Joanna Frketich reports Hamilton Health Sciences needs to find $20 million to $25 million in savings, while Hamilton St. Joseph’s is cutting $10 million to $12 million,…
It’s raining cuts
Premier designate Kathleen Wynne has strongly suggested that hospital cutbacks will continue Of the cuts just announced at the Ottawa Hospital, Wynne says the government is “transforming the health-care system,…
A tiny response to growing elder needs
The Ontario government’s 26 page Action Plan for Seniors came out yesterday. There’s not much to it. About half of the report simply rehashes what is already in place. To…
Major decline in nursing in Ontario hospitals
There was a sharp reduction in the number of Registered Nurses (RNs) working in Ontario hospitals in 2011, with a cut of 2,750 RNs to 58,699 according to new CIHI…
No progress on hospital superbugs
There has been no progress stopping the spread of superbugs in Ontario hospitals according to government data. Reported C. difficile rates are about the same as they have been, starting…