Sticky Notes: Nordal gets $1.17 million bonus, more ORNGE woes

Posted on January 28, 2012 | Leave a comment

Things got a bit sticky for Health Minister Deb Matthews on two fronts this week. Her reaction? “I’m outraged,” she said.

The first was the news that former London hospital CEO Cliff Nordal received a $1.17 million bonus on top of his salary for remaining at his post for four years overseeing both St. Joseph’s Health Care and London Health Sciences. Nordal has since retired and the two hospitals are now run separately.

Nordal was not the only one to receive a large eyebrow raising cheque. Over the past five years, according to the QMI agency, the two hospitals handed out $2.9 million in severance packages to another 11 executives.

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Public left out of major policy decisions: business elite backdrop for announcements

Posted on January 27, 2012 | Leave a comment

When was the last time a major policy announcement was made by government in front of an audience of union members?

On Monday Health Minister Deb Matthews is expected to make a major announcement on health restructuring before the Toronto Board of Trade. Earlier this week Premier Dalton McGuinty made a similar speech before the Canadian Club of Toronto.

With no legislative committees operating at Queen’s Park due a disagreement among the parties as to their composition, Ontario is about to undergo a major restructuring of public services with little to no public input.

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Posted in Health System, Ontario Health Coalition

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McGuinty says wait times could lengthen

Posted on January 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

The government has repeatedly responded to criticisms about health care by trotting out statistics describing how much wait times have been reduced since 2004.

On Monday Premier Dalton McGuinty suggested to reporters that wait times could increase once cost-cutting “reforms” are introduced in the March budget.

Is McGuinty confusing cuts with reforms? What kind of “reform” would citizens buy into that actually lengthened wait times? This makes no sense.

The suggestion may also rock public opinion. Ontarians have been sold on the idea that their biggest health care concern is wait times. 82 per cent told the Vector Poll in December that government’s top priority should be to reduce ER wait times.

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Food Wars: Hospital claims dining on frozen foods and fruit cups from China is “eating right”

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 1 Comment

“Determining the net cost/benefit of local foods was not possible with the survey because of confidentiality issues associated with food service contracts.” – Local Food For Health Care (Report), Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, August 2010

In the headlong rush to privatize, we often forget that the claims of better cost and efficiency are seldom verified, especially after some time has elapsed from the decision point.

The Canadian Coalition for Green Health Care, with a Trillium Grant from the province of Ontario, set out to assess the practicality, cost benefit, health and environmental benefits of incorporating more local food into patient and cafeteria meals.

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Algoma residents asked to drive 85 kilometres or more for a blood test

Posted on January 24, 2012 | 1 Comment

Not everyone may be aware of Thessalon.

The small retirement community is on the north shore of Lake Huron and bills itself as the “gem of Algoma.”

Last October the hospital closed the doors of its medical laboratory to outpatients. This affects a region of about 9,000 people who live to the east of Sault Ste. Marie.

This is not unusual. Thessalon was already an outlier given most hospitals have already closed their doors to outpatient medical laboratory testing. Nobody will say it’s a policy. It just… happened.

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How does Drummond decide which C-Sections are unnecessary?

Posted on January 23, 2012 | 8 Comments

According to the Toronto Star, the Drummond Commission will recommend a major overhaul of our health care system, including delisting of certain procedures from OHIP coverage while reducing the incidence of others.

This is a turnaround from Drummond’s earlier insistence that he wasn’t for U.S.-style privatization. If a service is delisted from OHIP, it becomes totally privatized.

There will likely be considerable debate over these procedures, given it is economist Don Drummond, and not the Ontario Medical Association, that is deciding which have value, and which don’t. And just because it is not covered, that doesn’t mean a procedure won’t be performed if someone has sufficient cash to make it happen.

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Canada loses 2.9 per cent of health and social service workforce in 2011

Posted on January 21, 2012 | Leave a comment

Feeling a little more stressed at work this year?

It may be because there are fewer health care workers and more patients coming through the door.

Canada shed more than 9,000 jobs in health care and social assistance between November and December of 2011 according to Statistics Canada.

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A light bulb turns on – Goar conflicted over evidence on health care spending

Posted on January 20, 2012 | Leave a comment

When Jim Flaherty was Ontario finance minister, he predicted in 2001 that health care spending would increase to 60 cents on every dollar spent by the Ontario government within five years.

The Tories were then spending 46 cents.

Five years later it was a different government in power at Queen’s Park and Greg Sorbara was Ontario finance minister. Sorbara complained that 45 cents of every dollar was going to health care. He said the government had to get health spending under control.

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Premiers form committees to change no to yes

Posted on January 18, 2012 | 1 Comment

Former Saskatchewan Premier Roy Romanow calls them tepid.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is saying no means no.

There is likely more frustration at Victoria’s Premiers’ meeting this week than among the coaching staff of the wilting Toronto Maple Leafs.

The Premiers first arrived after discovering the Federal government had unilaterally decided on what the funding side of the next health care accord would look like.

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Niagara and Peterborough hospitals struggle with “improvement” plans

Posted on January 17, 2012 | Leave a comment

The Niagara Health System and the Peterborough Regional Health Centre are frequently on the radar of the public, and presumably, the Minister of Health and Long Term Care.

While hundreds of kilometres apart, both have accumulated significant debt from years of running operational deficits and both are struggling with unrealistic hospital improvement plans (HIP).

This week both made the news.

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Posted in Hospitals, Local Health Integration Networks

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