Just prior to last November’s Ontario Hospital Association Conference, OHA CEO Tom Closson called for hospitals to be placed under Freedom of Information legislation.
Ontario is the only province that excludes its publicly-funded hospitals from such scrutiny.
Addressing the OHA, newly minted health minister Deborah Matthews saluted Closson for taking the initative.
“The people of Ontario expect both a strong health care system, and fiscal responsibility. And it’s our job to provide both,” she said. “One part of restoring that trust is being transparent and how we’re spending and what we’re doing. It’s about showing Ontarians that we’re achieving and being honest about our shortcomings.”
Matthews said that with Closson’s leadership at the OHA, Ontario will be able to restore trust and regain public confidence in the health system.
Enter the Friends of the Ajax/Pickering Hospital. The Friends are a diverse community-based group that advocates on behalf of its local hospital in West Durham.
In 2008 the Rouge Valley Health System board decided to move all inpatient mental health beds from the Ajax-Pickering Hospital to the Scarborough Centenary Hospital. The plan had been kept under wraps until the Rouge board approved it, and within three days, the Central East LHIN had rubber stamped the move without any community consultation or input.
While the Rouge Valley Board has continually argued that consolidation of mental health beds at Scarborough Centenary was part of their deficit reduction plan, the Friends have always doubted whether there were any costs savings to be had.
Not only did Rouge have to renovate Centenary to accommodate the transfer, but a brand new state-of-the-art psychiatric intensive care unit at Ajax-Pickering would be abandoned as part of the process.
Last year the Friends decided to ask for the information on costs related to the transfer from Rouge Valley. They received a letter back from former Tory cabinet minister Janet Ecker, Chair of Rouge’s Board. In it she said the Board’s finance committee met and considered the Friends request.
“The committee has advised me that RVHS follows financial disclosure practices that are generally consistent with the industry and in compliance with statutory reporting requirements,” Ecker wrote. “Based on the above, the committee has concluded and advised me that disclosure of the highly detailed information requested in your letter would be inconsistent with the hospital’s disclosure practices and those of the hospital industry.”
The Friends have since sent in a Freedom of Information request, and been told the information they seek is unavailable. They are appealing.
If the OHA and the Ministry of Health were serious about this, they would give the Friends the information they seek and make disclosure a priority.
It’s time for the OHA and the Ministry to open up the hospitals to disclosure, not just talk about openness and transparency.
OPSEU Diablogue 