False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Laboratory Services Expanded in Huntsville and Bracebridge Hospitals: Point of Care Testing Fails to Meet Expectations

Muskoka Algonquin Healthcare (MAHC) has restored a regular night shift in its medical laboratories at the Huntsville and Bracebridge hospitals. This is a victory for viable community hospitals. It is also another example of the chaos caused by the government’s artificial prohibition on hospital labs performing medical laboratory work for

Continue reading

False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Private Hospitals in Specialty Clinic Clothing

The provincial government’s mid-summer announcement that regulations under the Independent Health Facilities (IHF) Act will be drafted to permit “specialty clinics” raises some serious concerns. Changes in the LHINS enabling legislation will also be required. While the details are sparse the government’s stated goal is to permit the LHINs, Ontario’s

Continue reading

False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: The Risks of For-Profit Community Care

With the sale of the Shouldice Clinic to a health care conglomerate it is useful to review some of the literature comparing for-profit hospitals to non-profit hospitals. The results show that: 1)      there is a higher risk of death in for-profit hospitals, http://www.cmaj.ca/content/166/11/1399.full : 2)      private for-profit hospitals result in

Continue reading

False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Are OHIP Fees to High? – Part 1

Ontario’s recent decisions to cut fees for doctors’ services and move more services from hospitals to community facilities, called independent health facilities (IHF), raise numerous questions about doctors incomes, fee-for-service payment and for-profit clinics. The Ontario government is arguing that they need to cut many fees because technology has changed

Continue reading

False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Independent Health Facilities and For-Profit Delivery: Reassuring Words, Troubling Results

Who said these words and when? We have three broad objectives: to develop a more community-based health care system to ensure that patients receive quality medical care as close to home as possible; that the procedures are carried out in a safe, effective manner; and to regulate facilities so that

Continue reading