In Brief: McGuinty government to introduce competitive bidding for hospitals

Competitive bidding has been such a disaster in home care, the McGuinty government is now planning on exporting the concept to hospitals. Today’s Toronto Star reports the Ontario government plans to make hospitals compete on cost to perform acute care in-patient surgeries and treatments. The government claims it will save the system $1.8 to $3.6 billion by reducing duplication and saving on economies of scale. One Liberal official conceded to the newspaper that the changes may not we welcomed in general hospitals or in those serving rural communities. Already struggling, the announcement may be a major blow to smaller communities trying to keep services close to home. The savings may present a major expense to families having to travel to major urban centers to seek care. More on this in posts to come. …. The Toronto East General Hospital is doing its own review of work performed by Dr. Olive Williams, the pathologist at the center of the mistaken mastectomy case in Windsor. Williams worked at the Toronto hospital 12 years ago. Williams and surgeon Dr. Barbara Heartwell are being sued for $2.2 million by Laurie Johnston for their alleged roles in the Leamington woman’s mistaken mastectomy. A Windsor law firm is also preparing a class action against Williams … Dr. Jack Kitts, CEO of the Ottawa Hospital, told the Ottawa Citizen that he expects to get two per cent more in the provincial budget. After major cuts to staffing in the past week, Kitts says “if it comes out less than that, we’ll have to reconvene and re-look and all bets are off.” … Three Ottawa-area hospitals are connecting to a new diagnostic imaging network. Carleton Place and District Memorial Hospital, Queensway-Carleton Hospital, and Kemptville District Hospital became the first hospitals in the Champlain LHIN to start sending patient information to the Northern and Eastern Diagnostic Imaging Network (NEODIN). NEODIN is a diagnostic imaging repository that will allow reports to be shared between the three sites. When completed in 2011, NEODIN is expected to include 59 hospitals from the North East, North West and Champlain LHINs.