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 readingTag: Ontario Government Policy
False positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Ontario Budget Debate Ignores Taxes and Billions Transferred to For-Profit Corporations
Ontario’s budget debate may be high profile, but it misses two essential points. With the NDP signaling NO TAX INCREASES (on the middle class) a serious discussion about taxes, particularly the need to increase corporate and wealth taxes, will not take place. It is hard to have any serious budget
Continue readingFalse 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 readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Fragmentation, Private Profit and Home Phlebotomy
Every day there are stories of how the fragmentation of health care hurts patients. A few, when a patient dies, make the media. Most often fragmentation causes small inconveniences, but there are many and they affect patients in very real ways. December 19th’s story is about a patient with a
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Privatising Preventive Care – the For-Profit Flu Fight
Flu season is upon us, and it seems that the for-profit-health-care bug is infecting primary and preventative care. The yearly campaign to increase the number people vaccinated against the flu is coordinated by the public sector though the Ministry of Health and Public Health Units. After that it gets a
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Health Facility License Auction Health Cost Driver
It seems so obvious in hindsight: if you want to know what is going on in business-side of community medicine look where doctors look – the classified section of The Medical Post. After reading all of the articles, during a slow day at work, a big flashy classified ad for
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Canada Health Act used in Zombie Defence of For-Profit Health Care
Andrew Duffy, in an article syndicated by Postmedia, made the logical equivalent of mixing metaphors when he used the Canada Health Act (CHA) to legitimize the use of private clinics. The result, as with mixed metaphors, is a “head-scratching” argument in favour of Centric’s takeover of the Shouldice Clinic. Duffy
Continue readingFalse 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 readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Missed Opportunity: Corporate Conglomerate Buys Shouldice Center
The Ontario Government has missed an opportunity with the sale of the Shouldice Clinic to health care conglomerate, Centric Health. The government could have purchased Shouldice and integrated its services into the public health care system: after all, Shouldice was funded from the public purse. A good comparator for the
Continue readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: Methadone Clinic Limits Doctor’s Employment
One of Ontario’s little known private secrets is that most methadone, a staple of opiate addiction treatment, is primarily provided by for-profit clinics. Last week a doctor who works in one of these private clinics casually told me that her contract with the clinic forbade her from working for another
Continue readingFalse 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 readingFalse positive: private profit in Canada's health care: More Local Lab Service Cuts
It seems that the government is now using changes in the OHIP fee schedule give more work to the for-profit laboratory corporations. This reduction in patient access is documented by Rita Marshall in the June 22 edition of the Mitchell Advocate. Mitchell is a town in the Municipality of West Perth near
Continue readingFalse 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
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