Hospitals await funding details; planning for new Civic, treatment centre get budget nods
Elizabeth Payne, Ottawa Citizen
Updated: April 11, 2019
The Ottawa Hospital’s planned Civic super hospital and CHEO’s new integrated treatment centre both got nods in the Ford government’s first budget Thursday.
The two hospitals will receive money for planning and engineering work as part of $17 billion the province says it will spend over the next decade modernizing and building new hospitals.
The Ottawa Hospital welcomed the funding: “The new campus will serve our community and beyond for generations to come, and we will continue to engage our partners in the community throughout the planning process,” said a hospital spokesperson.
Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government characterized its budget as one that protects health care at a time when the provincial health system is being restructured to tackle hallway medicine and other issues. But critics say it will leave hospitals struggling to cope with overcrowding and growing demands.
Overall hospital spending will go up by $384 million — which is a two-per-cent increase over last year. The Ontario Hospital Association was asking for 3.4 per cent to meet increasing needs.
It is still unclear, though, what individual hospital budgets will look like as they struggle to deal with overcrowded emergency departments and continue to treat patients in hallways. Those details will be available in coming days.
Ontario Hospital Association president Anthony Dale said the hospital funding “will help maintain access to services as the fundamental changes needed to transform Ontario’s health system are put in place.”
Hospital overcrowding, he said, “is the direct result of poor planning and inadequate capacity in other important areas of Ontario’s health system. We look forward to working with the government and health provider partners to bring about the changes that are so clearly needed.”
Thursday’s budget featured a free dental program for low-income seniors, which was being welcomed by many advocates for the elderly, although Ottawa Centre NDP MPP Joel Harden noted that it is only available to individuals with incomes below $19,300, far less than a similar program in Alberta. There, seniors earning less than $33,000 receive free dental care.
“This piecemeal approach is going to help too few,” said Harden.
Still, the focus on seniors was embraced by Lisa Levin, chief executive of Advantage Ontario, which represents not-for-profit long-term care homes, seniors housing and community organizations.
“We saw a renewed commitment to a number of things that will support seniors.”
She welcomed $267 million in funding for home and community care, including nursing and personal support as well as transportation and meals. That will help many seniors remain in supported housing and keep them out of long-term care homes, she said.
Access to meals and transportation, she said, “are simple things that really help people stay at home.’
The province will also create 15,000 new long-term care beds over the next five years and upgrade 15,000 older beds at long-term care homes to meet the needs of patients with complex health conditions.
The budget also featured a focus on alcohol with loosened rules around its consumption and sale, including allowing alcohol to be served at 9 a.m., permitting municipalities to allow people to drink in parks and public areas and allowing happy hour specials to be advertised.
Meanwhile, the government will make significant changes and cuts to public health units, some of which have been at odds with the government over supervised consumption sites and have made alcohol a focus of public health campaigns. The province says it will reduce the current 35 health units to 10 and modernize the public health laboratory system. It is not clear whether that will result in layoffs, but the budget refers to improving “back office efficiency.”
The province will also invest $3.8 billion in mental health, addictions and housing supports over the next decade.
The budget, coming at a time when health-care delivery is in a state of change in Ontario, is very much a holding budget. The province recently passed legislation doing away with the Local Integrated Health Network (LHIN) system and folding 20 previous health agencies into one super agency headed by a single board.
It has begun planning for a primary care system that will be delivered by integrated health teams.
By the time the Ford government delivers its next budget, health care could look very different in the province.
https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local...et-budget-nods
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